Sonya Guha-Thakurta holds both Master of Music and Bachelor of Music degrees in composition from the University of Calgary, where she studied with Allan Gordon Bell, David Eagle and William Jordan. While still a student, she was the recipient of a Godfrey Ridout Award in the SOCAN Young Composers Competition, and won first prize in the 2000 Land’s End Composers Competition. In 2006 she was a nominee for the Emerging Artist Award at the Mayor’s Luncheon for Business and the Arts.
Guha-Thakurta has been commissioned by CBC Radio, New Works Calgary, Saint Crispins’s Chamber Ensemble, Contemporary Showcase Festival, Knox Presbyterian Church Choir and cellist Beth Root Sandvoss. Her work has been performed by various soloists and ensembles including Saint Crispin’s Chamber Ensemble, Motion Ensemble, Land’s End Chamber Ensemble, and Spiritus Chamber Choir. In addition to concerts with Alberta, Guha-Thakurta’s music has been performed at the Ottawa International Chamber Festival, the Ear & Now Festival in New Brunswick and has been heard on CBC Radio in Alberta and across Canada.
An active private music teacher. Guha-Thakurta has also been an instructor of music theory classes at the Mount Royal College Conservatory and a sessional professor of music theory at the University of Calgary.