bio

“Like an ever-expanding number of young musicians, Halifax-based cellist India Gailey is equally at home in the worlds of composed and improvised music. While her second solo album firmly belongs to the first category, there’s no missing a certain air of spontaneity and an abiding curiosity from the latter.” — Peter Margasak, Bandcamp Daily, on to you through

“She embodies the reflection and longing of solo interpretation […] a palpably emotional set”
— Claire Biddles, The Wire, on to you through

India Gailey (she/they) is an award-winning Canadian cellist, composer, vocalist, and improviser. She draws from many eras and genres to craft poetic narratives of sound, most often performing in the realms of classical and experimental music. Named by CBC as one of “30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30,” India has toured across the Western hemisphere as a soloist, chamber musician, and collaborator. She frequently works with living composers, filmmakers, dancers, visual artists, and musicians of various stripes to create works of exploratory art. 

India has worked with several admired composers of our time, including Philip Glass, Yaz Lancaster, Amy Brandon, Fjóla Evans, Michael Harrison, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Nicole Lizée, and Julia Mermelstein. Following the success of to you through (Redshift Records, 2022), India released Problematica (People Places Records, 2024), a collection of works written specifically for her by Canadian composers . Butterfly Lightning Shakes the Earth (Redshift, 2024) featured her own compositions and was nominated for a 2025 “Classical Album of the Year” JUNO. The titular work, a concerto for cello and orchestra with Symphony Nova Scotia, earned an East Coast Music Award for “Composer of the Year.” Other recent highlights include performances of Dinuk Wijeratne’s Hymnpeace for solo cello, turntables, and orchestra with the Thunder Bay Symphony; collaborations with Blackwood (Jeff Reilly & Peter-Anthony Togni), and a CBC national broadcast for the “Classical Road to the Junos.” India also received critical acclaim as part of the (now defunct) improvising quartet New Hermitage.

As a composer, India is inspired by interdisciplinary interaction, and her compositions often explore environmentalism, magical realism, or post-minimalism. In addition to her musical studies, she studied visual art at NSCAD University, and smatterings of contemporary dance, these other disciplines informing her compositional approach. One of her largest works to date was Music Across the Water, an outdoor site-specific happening involving over twenty musicians stationed in various locations in and around an oceanic inlet as part of the 2024 Scotia Festival of Music. India was the 2023 recipient of the Paul Cram Creation Award from Upstream Music Association, which facilitated the premiere of her cello concerto Butterfly Lightning Shakes the Earth with Symphony Nova Scotia. In 2022 she wrote music for Symphony Nova Scotia to illustrate Rebecca Thomas’s children’s book I’m Finding My Talk  and for Emily Ellis’ film Waiting on Arrival. She has also written for members of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ear Camera, Keep Good (Theatre) Company, the Acadia Gamelan Ensemble, various combinations of musicians and dancers. She is currently composer-in-residence with the Halifax Camerata Singers.

India holds numerous honours, including awards from the Nova Scotia Talent Trust, Arts Nova Scotia, the Canada Council for the Arts, Acadia University, and McGill University. Venues at which she has performed or held residencies include the Banff Centre for the Arts, Canadian Music Centre, Domaine Forget, Garth Newel Music Center, Guelph Jazz Festival, OBEY Convention, Open Waters Festival, Scotia Festival of Music, Suoni Per Il Popolo, and other various halls, galleries, homes, bars, gardens, and castles. India also serves on the Board of Directors for the Scotia Festival of Music, as an adjudicator for various national competitions, and she facilitates workshops on meditation, music, cello playing, and improvisation. She is currently based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). She loves raspberries, large marimbas, and the smell of burning thyme.