Maura Sharkey Pryma (she/her) is a premier voice specialist, instructor, mentor, and consultant with over 25 years of intensive training and clinical experience. As the owner of The Sharkey Voice Studio and the creator of the innovative Learn English Through Singing The Sharkey Method® (LETS)—an 11-week program with a focus of learning English as an additional language and English pronunciation through contemporary songs.—Maura is a trailblazer in vocal education.
Her diverse teaching career includes over 15 years at the Alberta College Conservatory of Music, and she currently serves as a sessional voice instructor for MacEwan University’s esteemed Theatre Arts Program in Musical Theatre Performance. From her private studio in Edmonton, Canada, Maura employs a crosstraining approach that seamlessly bridges traditional vocal pedagogy with 21st-century musical theatre techniques. Her teaching philosophy centers on removing fear by taking risks and making noises, and cultivating greater awareness of physical sensations. She trains and mentors students in musical theatre, classical, contemporary commercial music, song interpretation, breathing and vocal techniques, basic physiology, aspects of voice and speech, and acting training. In addition to helping singers select music and prepare for auditions and performances, her main focus is insuring the voice is functioning as it should for optimal vocal ease, quality and longevity, and advocating for efficient vocal production.
Maura holds both a Bachelor and Master of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Alberta, with advanced training from the Salzburg Mozarteum Sommerakademie, Opera NUOVA, and The Opera Project. Fully committed to cutting-edge vocal pedagogy and musical theatre methodologies, she holds certifications from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, The Voice Study Centre, and Level 3 Somatic Voicework™ from The LoVetri Institute. To that end, Maura still studies voice regularly, attends workshops, maintains a physical practice, and works on her own performance in order to best serve her students.
A passionate advocate for music education, Maura is the past President of the Association of Independant Music Teachers at Alberta College (AIMTAC) and former Chair of the Alberta Music Education Foundation (AMEF). She is also the co-author of The Essential Music Recital Planner and maintains active memberships in the National Association of Teachers of Music (NATS), the Musical Theatre Educators' Alliance (MTEA), the Canadian Actors Equity Association (CAEA,) and the Canadian Music Festival Adjudicators’ Association (CMFAA).