Biography
Composer | Educator | Artistic Director
Imagination, innovation, and socially engaged storytelling are central to Dr. Parisa Sabet’s creative practice. As an Iranian-Canadian composer, media artist, and artistic director, she creates immersive works that explore cultural identity, resilience, and the amplification of overlooked narratives—particularly the stories of women. Drawing from her heritage and extensive musical training, she engages audiences through multisensory experiences that evoke profound emotional and cultural resonance.
Dr. Sabet’s portfolio spans acoustic, electroacoustic, and interactive multimedia works. Her research deeply examines how texture, timbre, and spatial gestures shape both sonic and visual environments. This allows her to structure large-scale works—such as her recent installations Sabzeh (2025), Sepideh (2023), and Silent (2022)—where live instrumentation, digital playback, dance, and visual art develop together coherently to explore themes of collective strength and human rights. These themes are also at the core of her debut album, A Cup of Sins (2022). Supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts, the album features a collection of works confronting oppression, violence against women, and freedom of speech.
Beyond her creative practice, Dr. Sabet is a visionary artistic leader dedicated to bringing people together across cultural and political divides. From 2019 to 2024, she served on the Board of Directors of the Aurora Cultural Centre, chairing the Governance and Nominating Committee. She served as the Artistic Leader for the Women, Art, Resilience concert (2025), featuring works by women composers from around the world, and for the Dawn Initiative (2019), which presented world premieres by an international roster of composers. Additionally, as co-artistic director of the Israeli-Iranian Musical Initiative, she led concerts celebrating Jewish, Israeli, and Iranian cultures, creating vital spaces for dialogue and unity.
As an educator, Dr. Sabet empowers students to develop their own creative voices. She is the founder of No Need to Vanish, a nonprofit organization that provides bite-sized music technology education and accessible resources for musicians from diverse backgrounds, equipping emerging artists with the tools they need to share their perspectives.
Dr. Sabet holds a Doctor of Musical Arts, a Master of Music in Composition, and a Master of Music Technology and Digital Media from the University of Toronto. She is the recipient of numerous distinctions, including the Mirkopoulos and Miller/Khoshkish fellowships and the Tecumseh Sherman Rogers Graduating Award. Her mentors include Christos Hatzis, Keith Tedman, Kyong Mee Choi, Ka Nin Chan, and Stacy Garrop.
Through all her endeavors, Dr. Sabet remains committed to using music and media as a bridge—connecting people, stories, and cultures in meaningful ways.
