Opera singer Miriam Khalil, an assistant lecturer in the University of Alberta’s Department of Music, has been nominated for a 2026 Grammy Award for her work on an opera adaptation of Atom Egoyan’s 2008 film Adoration.
Khalil is being recognized for her soprano singing on a recording of the opera, which combines live singing, string quartet and electronic instrumentation.
The story follows a high school student who uses a French class assignment to fabricate a terrorism-related backstory for his family, deliberately inviting an internet audience into the drama. Khalil plays Sabine, a high school French teacher who seems like a secondary character at first but quickly begins to drive the story, says Khalil.
“(Composer) Mary Kouyoumdjian wrote almost my entire range, and you don’t normally do that,” says Khalil. “So it was an incredible challenge. There are moments where I’m up in the stratosphere, and then I end down in my chest voice for a whole aria.”
While Khalil has received Juno Award nominations for past work, she says the Grammy nomination surprised her because there is such a large pool of entrants and major industry players vying for the awards.
“We’re not a big company,” she says. “We’re kind of the underdogs in this category.”