who is AMIRA anyway?

Amira Aya Heis, known as AMIRA, is an actress, singer, and songwriter from Shelbyville, IN, who declares music as her love language. Currently studying musical theatre at AMDA College of the Performing Arts in Los Angeles, Amira explores new personas and worldbuilding both in her music and on stage. She delivers sultry, sugary vocals paired with clever wordplay to bring a fresh and colorful sound to alternative pop, R&B, and beyond.

Story-telling has always been in her veins. She used to write novels as an elementary schooler that she never finished because after a couple chapters, she was already writing another story. Carrying around a dictionary and reading it was something she did for fun. In 3rd grade, she was writing articles for her local newspaper. After being in her first school musical in 5th grade, middle school was where she got to devote more energy to telling stories through a different medium: acting and singing. She has been singing in choir and acting in school plays/musicals since 6th grade, and she never stopped. She credits a lot of her songwriting abilities to her theatrical background. Additionally, she has always been adept in video editing, photography, makeup, fashion… pretty much anything creative.

After moving to New York City at 19 years old, to begin pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre at AMDA, she found that the urge to create her own projects was too strong for her to fit the mold of the full time aspiring actor/Broadway performer lifestyle. She wanted to call the shots. Moving to California to study instead at AMDA’s Los Angeles campus allowed her to expand her curriculum.

At 19, she wrote and recorded her first single ‘don't call’ during her first semester in LA for a school songwriting program with composer Noriko Olling. After connecting with producer/mixing engineer Christopher 'C-Ray' Roberts, the project came to life. It became her debut as an artist. Growing up, her mother was a DJ in the Indianapolis area, and thus music became her love language from a very young age. She is heavily influenced by R&B/Pop and idolizes artists such as Doja Cat, Britney Spears, Ariana Grande, and Miguel.