Sherryl Sewepagaham is of Woodland Cree and Dene ancestry from the Little Red River Cree Nation in northern Alberta and resides in Edmonton. She holds degrees in Master of Education, Bachelor of Education and Bachelor of Music Therapy. Sherryl is an experienced K-6 elementary music specialist and Orff-Schulwerk Specialist focusing on Indigenous music pedagogies and taught elementary music for 14 years and continued with consulting and presenting in the field. With the land as her teacher, Sherryl is furthering her knowledge of Indigenous Ways of Knowing and learning traditional practices on the land and waters in Treaty 8 territory.
Sherryl is a published composer of Cree choral works and First Nations songs. She is also a music producer having co-produced and composed the soundtrack for the documentary Re-ken-si-le-a-shen by Métis filmmaker, Jamie Bourque. Her 2014 debut solo album, Splashing the Water Loudly, received a 2015 Indigenous Music Award nomination and is featured in APTN’s Chaos and Courage series and All Our Relations. Sherryl wrote the music and lyrics for the National Arts Centre’s Music Alive Program (MAP) theme song, “Music Alive”, which has been shared with elementary schools across Canada. Sherryl also created and co-created three teacher resources for the MAP program and created a secondary music resource called Kanata: Contemporary Indigenous Artists and their Music with MusiCounts Education Charity. She continues to develop cultural music programs and teacher resources in education locally and nationally.
Sherryl was a 22-year, founding member of the retired 2006 Juno-nominated, Edmonton-based trio Asani and received a 2010 Canadian Folk Music Award, a 2010 Indian Summer Music Award, a 2005 Canadian Aboriginal Music Award, and many other prestigious music awards nominations. Asani toured extensively around the world performing at Carnegie Hall in New York, The Kennedy Centre in Washington, D.C., the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, BC, and stages in Finland, France, South Africa, Hawaii, Boston, Newfoundland, and Yukon.