Shara Nova is a classically trained vocalist and self-taught multi-instrumentalist who records dazzling shapeshifting music as My Brightest Diamond. Over the course of five groundbreaking albums, including her most recent LP A Million And One, she has resisted the conventions of genre, blending elements of rock, art pop and chamber music into a sound totally her own. During her career, Nova has also collaborated and played with a long list of talented artists and filmmakers including but not limited to Sufjan Stevens, Laurie Anderson, The Decemberists, David Byrne & Fatboy Slim, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Matthew Barney. Last fall she was announced as one of the four Carolina Performing Arts Creative Future Fellows and is a Kresge Fellow, Knights Grant recipient and a United States Artists fellow. She has composed works for yMusic, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Young New Yorkers’ Chorus, Brooklyn Rider, Nadia Sirota, and Roomful of Teeth and performed at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Kennedy Center.
As a teenager, the song “Sweet Thing” with Rufus and Chaka Khan was played often on Detroit radio, and I always loved it. After my divorce, I was trying to imagine what Love could look like for me, how I might move forward accepting the love that had been in my life without disparaging it, but not wanting to repeat scenarios or mistakes I had made. I dreamed of having a Love like the kind was described in “Sweet Thing,” and made an explicit reference to that in my song “Another Chance.” The playlist continues to grow and grow.
—Shara Nova
(Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez)
