Melissa is a freelance pianist from Somerset, based in Birmingham.

Primarily a collaborative pianist, Melissa also performs solo for creative contemporary works, as accompanist for various choirs, as composer, arranger and teacher. Versatility, communication and connection through music is at the heart of Melissa’s work.

Melissa graduated from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire with a First Class Honours degree and was awarded Distinction LRSM for piano performance the same year. Following an Erasmus Programme of study at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Weimar, Germany, she was also awarded the Weingarten Scholarship and spent a year studying at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, after which she returned to Birmingham to complete her Masters achieving Commendation.

Since graduation, Melissa has been active as a classical recitalist, whilst working freelance playing for projects with Birmingham Royal Ballet, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, DanceXchange, Elmhurst School for Dance and local community-based choirs such as The Midlands Hospitals' Choir. Melissa is also currently working with the Birmingham Opera Company and Welsh National Opera, delivering workshops across the West Midlands and with charities who support various groups such as refugees, women in crises and Opera projects in countywide special schools.

Melissa is passionate about sharing the joy of music and alongside her thriving network of private pupils, teaches at Royal Birmingham Junior Conservatoire and the esteemed Stowe School in Buckingham. 

Working with people is at the heart of Melissa’s passion and her most recent projects involve creative collaborations and compositional commissions bringing together classical and neo-classical piano, working with electronica artists EIF and contemporary dance, Vanhulle Dance Theatre, for their most recent release, “Half Light”. She has received commissions to work on community projects as composer and arranger such as with B’Opera for Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens “Home is Here Now” project in 2022 and their most recent work “Fluffball” 2004 and as composer for the dance work “Schoen” coreographed by Vanhulle Dance Theatre which premiered at MUDA Kunstsecundair in Belgium in 2021.

Melissa works with a variety of musicians as a collaborative pianist. Currently, recitals feature Soprano Abigail Kelly, Mezzo-Soprano Samantha Oxborough and Melissa has more recently formed The Willow Ensemble with fellow Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Graduates to explore flute, clarinet and piano repertoire.