Gabriel Dharmoo

Gabriel Dharmoo’s multidirectional artistic practice encompasses musical composition, vocal performance, drag artistry, interdisciplinary arts and research. His works often explore voice, mixed-identity, brownness, queerness, imaginary culture, satire as well as the interplay between tradition and subversion.

As a composer, his works have been performed across Canada, the U.S.A, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Estonia, Poland, Australia, Singapore and South Africa. He has received many awards for his compositions, such as the Canada Council for the Arts Jules Léger Prize for his chamber work Wanmansho (2017) and the Conseil Québécois de la Musique Opus Award for his opera À chaque ventre son monstre (2018). He recently released Vestiges d’une fable (2024), an album of his chamber music in collaboration with Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra.

His solo show Anthropologies imaginaires (2014) has toured internationally (Usine C, PuSh Festival, Sydney Festival, EXPERIMENTICA) and was awarded at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival (2015) and the SummerWorks Performance Festival (2016). He has been developing his drag persona Bijuriya since 2018, working towards his drag and music solo production Bijuriya (2022), presented a dozen times in Canada (Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Kitchener).

He has researched Carnatic music with 4 renowned masters in Chennai (India) in 2008 and 2011. He has also participated in many cross-cultural and intertraditional musical projects, many being led by Sandeep Bhagwati in Montreal (Sound of Montreal, Ville étrange) and in Berlin (Zungenmusiken, Miyagi Haikus).

He holds a PhD in research-creation from the Individualized Program of Concordia University.