Suzanne Meyers Sawa was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She holds a degree in piano performance from Wittenberg University in Ohio, and Masters degrees in both musicology and library science from the University of Toronto, where she is currently Assistant Librarian at the Faculty of Music Library. She has studied classical Arabic at the University of Toronto, and Arabic percussion in Egypt. She has given numerous performances of Arabic music in Europe and North America with the Ensemble, and has made guest appearances with other groups (including the SINE NOMINE ensemble for medieval music and Alpharabius), she was among the featured performers in the commissioned concert for the decennial meeting of the Medieval Academy of America in Toronto in 1997, and has been broadcast on the CBC. She performed in the premiere of R. Murray Schafer’s The Litany of RA. Suzanne has given papers on Arabic music at international conferences, and written numerous articles on Arabic women musicians in the early Islamic period, for The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music and The Encyclopedia of Islam (third edition). She is presently at work on a book of annotated translations (from medieval Arabic sources) of stories about women musicians. Suzanne is also active in the choral scene in Toronto, both as a lead and as an ensemble member.