About Shooka
Shooka Afshar is a Harvard Music Award–winning soprano, composer, flutist, pianist, and professional vocal pedagogue. A City of Boston Certified Artist, she merges classical training with Iranian musical traditions, creating vivid interdisciplinary works that explore identity, migration, women’s experiences, and resilience. She earned her master’s degree in Classical Vocal Performance from the Longy School of Music of Bard College in 2014. For seven years, she underwent professional vocal therapy and pedagogy sessions at Boston Medical Center to heal and strengthen her own voice. This extensive firsthand experience deepened her understanding of vocal function and technique and became an important foundation for her work as a professional vocal pedagogue.
She made her U.S. operatic debut as the Princess in the U.S. premiere of Dvořák’s The Cunning Peasant in 2014. In 2022, she performed her original composition Nowrooz Stayed Untouched at the Farhang Foundation and returned to perform with the Foundation again in 2025. Her mixed-media opera Women / Immigration / Fight or Flight premiered online in 2021 and was later performed live at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2023. Most recently, she sang with Boston Summer Opera in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia in August 2026.
Her creative range extends beyond opera. She composed the original film score for Without Fear, an independent film addressing violence against women, and also performed vocals for the soundtrack. In 2022, she led a one-month artist residency at Casa Regis in northern Italy, bringing together a multidisciplinary group of eight dancers, painters, and musicians. During the residency, she composed The Manipulation Project through graphic scoring and performed its vocals and flute. The mixed-media operatic work combines avant-garde sound art, music, movement, and visual art to portray how societal expectations can leave women vulnerable to abusive relationships while illuminating their inner power to recognize their worth and break free.
Shooka has maintained a longstanding commitment to Iranian folk music and the Persian community. In 2012, she received an award from the Iranian Association of Boston for conducting its adult choir and for her contribution to the Persian community through performances and the promotion of Iranian culture. In 2017, she founded the Sarazamin Ensemble to bridge Persian folk traditions with contemporary and classical influences. In 2022, she received a Music Award from the Iranian Gala at Harvard, where she was also a featured musical performer. Her work in Persian music reflects an ongoing commitment to carrying Iranian musical culture forward while creating connections between Persian and Western musical traditions.
Her artistic work has been presented internationally through concerts, mixed-media productions, artist residencies, film scoring, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Through her performances and compositions, she uses music to create connections across cultures and to give artistic expression to issues surrounding women, immigration, identity, and human experience.
An avid composer and sound artist, Shooka delights in transforming human emotions into avant-garde sound art. Her compositions channel themes of social and women’s rights, weaving personal vulnerability and collective resilience into richly textured works. Her mission is to continue expanding her artistic canvas through increasingly ambitious interdisciplinary projects. Her forthcoming production, The Internal Family, is a large-scale mixed-media theatrical work incorporating modern dance, music, theatre, acting, and visual storytelling to explore the different psychological parts within a woman’s psyche and the process of embracing the full self.
