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MELISSA SHIFLETT
Composer -- Lyricist -- Performer
Melissa Shiflett began her career as resident composer to the experimental Dream Theatre at the Body Politic Theatre in Chicago. She specializes in opera and song-writing. Her opera Dora, composed to a libretto by Nancy Fales Garrett, was originally premiered by La MaMa, ETC in association with The American Chamber Opera Company and was given its second full production in April, 2009, by the Peabody Chamber Opera at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Excerpts from Dora were presented on New York City Opera’s first annual Vox festival showcase. Her opera My Undying Love: An Amusement, was presented by The Construction Company in 2008 in a production by The American Chamber Opera Company. Other operas include Lisa's Room: A Dream commissioned and performed by Piccolo Productions in Chicago, and Without Colors produced by the Minnesota Opera New Music Ensemble.
Ms. Shifflett's Songs on Sara Teasdale Poems and Water Dreams were premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2002 by soprano Shauna Holiman and can be heard on Albany Records. Her Lullaby Duets were performed at the DIA Center for the Arts in New York, The William Ferris Chorale in Chicago, and on a concert of her songs at the 92nd St. Y on their Meet the Virtuoso series. Songs she composed for theater have been performed both nationally and internationally in the plays Dracula by Mac Wellman and Tales of the Lost Formicans by Constance Congdon. The most recent works, Fantasy Songs and The Rose Saga, sung by Ms. Shiflett and Helen Mandlin, were performed at The Construction Company in New York City and the 92nd Street Y in 2010.
Ms. Shiflett has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the Margaret Jory Copying Assistance Program of the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, and a Diverse Forms Artist Grant (funded by the NEA, Rockefeller Foundation and Jerome Foundation) to complete the orchestration of her opera Dora. She holds degrees in music composition and piano from the American Conservatory of Music. She is a music instructor at the 92nd St. Y and is a member of ASCAP. |
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