Melika M. Fitzhugh

A native of Stafford, Virginia, Melika M. Fitzhugh (A.B. Harvard-Radcliffe, Music Theory and Composition; M.M. Longy School of Bard College, Composition) has studied conducting and composition with Thomas G. Everett, Beverly Taylor, James Yannatos, Julian Pellicano, Roger Marsh, Jeff Stadelman, and, most recently, Osnat Netzerand John Howell Morrison. Performed internationally, Mel’s compositions have been commissioned by John Tyson, Catherine E. Reuben, John and Maria Capello, Laura and Geoffrey Shamu, Ex-Aequo, and the Quilisma Consort, and have been performed by those artists as well as B3: Brouwer Trio(Valencia, Spain), the PHACE Ensemble (Vienna, Austria), Quarteto Larianna(Sao Paulo, Brazil), Sarah Jeffrey (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), theRadcliffe Choral Society, Patricia Reuben Abreu, Berit Strong, Miyuki Tsurutani, Libor Dudas, and Aldo Abreu. Mel was a 2021 Bang on a Can Fellow, the 2020 winner of the PatsyLu Prize for IAWM’s Search for New Music, and the 2014 winner of the Longy orchestral composition competition. The artist has performed with the Radcliffe Choral Society, Coro Allegro, the Harvard Wind Ensemble, the Village Circle Band, and WACSAC. Mel, who has composed music for film and stage, was a member of Just In Time Composers and Players and is currently a member of world/early music ensemble Urban Myth and the early music ensemble Quilisma Consort, in addition to playing bass guitar with acoustic rock singer/songwriter Emmy Cerra, the symphonic metal/progressive band Illusion’s End, the ambient rock band Rose Cabal and the Balkan folk dance band Balkan Fields. Mel enjoys playing a variety of instruments for folk dance ensembles, including: violin/viola; acoustic guitar/bass; recorders; flute; and hand percussion including dumbek/djembe/cajon. Mel teaches these instruments, in addition to piano, violoncello, trumpet, clarinet and saxophone, privately.