Melissa is originally from Long Island, New York where she studied classical violin for ten years with Dr. Liana Laura Mount of the Juilliard School.  She was accepted into the prestigious New York Youth Symphony at age 14, and rehearsed and performed with them in Carnegie Hall every Sunday for several years. In this orchestra, she studied with top members of the New York Philharmonic and performed with renowned international soloists such as Andre Watts, Emanuel Ax, and Cho-Liang Lin. On Saturdays, she attended the Chamber Music Workshop in Old Westbury, New York, studying chamber music, theory, sight-singing, chorus and orchestra under the direction of Paul and Patricia Rudoff.  During summers, she attended orchestral camps at the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam, and at Skidmore College with NYSSSA, where she studied with principal players of the Philadelphia Orchestra.  She was a member of and frequent soloist with her school orchestras and school theater pit, as well as Concertmaster of the Gemini Youth Symphony.  She received her B.A. from the University of New Hampshire in 1999, where she was Concertmaster of the UNH Symphony and a frequent performer in opera and theater shows and faculty concerts.

Melissa performs regularly as a freelance artist, and has played in hundreds of concerts, musical theater shows, weddings and events. She was a long-time member of the Artful Noise String Quartet which performed several concerts each year for the community, as well as concerts with many choral groups around the seacoast.  She is currently playing with Academy Strings, a violin-guitar duo, and has been a violinist with over a dozen ensembles including Victorian Strings, and Friends with Strings, a trio with cello and mandolin. Her orchestral and choral endeavors include the Great Bay Philharmonic, the Portsmouth Symphony, Clearlakes Chorale, Amare Cantare, Portsmouth ProMusica, Community Chorus at South Berwick, the North Country Chorus, Concord Community Chorus, Rockingham Choral Society, Granite State Choral Society, Seacoast Community Chorus, Voices From the Heart and Women Singing Out.

On the fiddling side, she was a founding member of the French and Celtic trio La Madeleine, a band with whom she performed Scottish, Irish and Cape Breton fiddle tunes and songs for concerts, weddings and shows in the seacoast region. She has studied Celtic fiddling with U.S. National Fiddle Champion Hanneke Cassel in Boston, and has attended the Ceilidh Trail School of Celtic Music in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where she studied with Scottish National Champion Alasdair Fraser.  She has also participated in the Berklee String Fling, where she worked with Christian Howes, Matt Glaser and Eugene Friesen.  She composes fiddle tunes in her free time.

Melissa has recorded for New Hampshire Public Television, and many local songwriters and musicians, as well as for jazz guitarist Peter Mayer, with whom she has toured nationally and in the Cayman Islands.  She enjoys studio work and is featured on over ten albums. Melissa has also toured with Tim Janis throughout New England promoting several of his albums.

Melissa started teaching as Dr. Mount’s assistant in 1994 and offers a comfortable, supportive teaching environment for beginner through advanced students of all ages.  She believes in teaching the whole student, and works with parents and students together to create a broad violin and music curriculum. Her philosophy is based on non-judgmental principles and positive reinforcement, and she strengthens and renews her teaching continually by attending the best workshops and seminars across the country for violin pedagogy, as well as continuing with her own private violin lessons. She has experience with coaching and guest-conducting youth orchestras and chamber music ensembles both in New York and New Hampshire.  She is a past board member of the NH Chapter of the American String Teachers Association.

Her students have been members of community and college orchestras, have been accepted into music programs around the country, have often placed first chair in district orchestras, youth orchestras and summer camps, are regularly accepted into All-State, and have placed first in the NH Highland Competition, as well as fifth place in the National Open Scottish Fiddle Competition.  While Melissa enjoys preparing students who are serious in music and considering a musical career, she also loves to teach students young and older who are just looking for a fun, creative outlet with the violin.

Melissa was a violin and fiddle instructor at Berwick Academy for twenty years and has also taught at ChildLight Montessori School, Little Tree Education in Madbury and Dover, and at her home studio in Dover, NH.  She lives with her husband, two young boys and Bertie the cat, and likes to hike, garden, cook, read, ski and just spend time with her family. A nature-loving introvert, her favorite places to be are on a small balsam trail headed up a mountain or reading on a boulder in the middle of a stream.