Malaïka is an upcoming singer, composer, poet and writer currently completing a Graduate Diploma in Music Performance for classical singing under the tutelage of Christiane Riel. Operatic roles with the uOttawa Opera include Humperdinck’s Hansel (Cover) in Hansel and Gretel, Orfeo in The Orpheus Project and Mad Hatter in Todd’s Alice in Wonderland, La Maman, La Libellule and Un Pâtre (cover) in Ravel’s L’Enfant et Les Sortilèges. 

 

Recent original projects include Learning to Live, a piece for solo piano, a song cycle titled Painted Flowers, Call Me What I Become, a five-minute short film in collaboration with young animators worldwide, and a pop song titled Sunrise. Malaïka has collaborated as a singer, composer and/or poet with Black Theatre Workshop, Hors Pairs Social, Small Fish, Page Rwanda, Pieces of Us, The Shed, Bagelshop Musicfest, Atelier and Chamberfest. 

 

Additionally, her musical interpretation of the sustainable development goals has been performed live for children from the African Diaspora in Montreal. It has also been used by Future Earth, Sustainability in the Digital Age, and the Canadian Science Policy Centre as a prelude to two events in a National Dialogue series funded by the Government of Canada’s Sustainable Development Goals Funding Program.

 

Regarded as one of the top creative writers on Medium in 2022, she has written over a hundred published poems, a poetry book and a fantasy book. Incredibly passionate about art in service of activism, she collaborated with Dr. Mara Catherine Harvey, Switzerland & Europe CEO of VP Bank, to put her children’s book into a song about sustainable and ethical financial literacy. 

 

She is an alumna of the Arrivals Belonging Project and had the privilege of being the youngest artist selected to participate in the 2021 poetry jam held by the Black Theatre Workshop, the oldest Black theatre company in Canada.