Melissa Reiner brings her unique musical sensibilities and prodigious talent to a wide variety of professional endeavors.
Classically-trained since the age of three, she began intensive studies at the Aspen Music Festival during the summers of 1989-1991,
under the tutelage of Dorothy Delay and Piotr Milewski of the Juilliard School. During the academic year she attended boarding school
in Marin County, CA, in order to study with Isador Tinkleman of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and to serve as the
Associate Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, with whom she toured Europe in 1992. Melissa then moved to
Baltimore to attend the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where she received a Bachelor of Music degree and studied
with Shirley Givens, Violaine Melancon and Earl Carlyss (founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet). She toured and performed
extensively while a student, including performances with the Cleveland Orchestra and in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the United
States and the former Soviet Republic.
After pursuing additional graduate studies at the Peabody Institute and a stint in Paris, Melissa decided
to move to Los Angeles, which seemed to be the perfect city in which to explore her curiosity about her art outside the
confines of the classical music world. She has been lucky enough to expand upon her fantastic training in a vast number of
multi-genre professional projects (please see the Credits page for a complete listing) and continues to
employ her additional skills,
such as improvising and arranging. Melissa has performed at the Grammy Awards, on The Tonight Show, on Mad TV, on Canada's
Much Music, on the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, and on MTV numerous times, including the Janet Jackson Icon Awards.
She was the featured violinist for several videos and recordings with David Lee Roth, and is on the albums of Mary J. Blige,
Better than Ezra, Dishwalla and the forthcoming Christina Aguilera album. She can also be heard imitating the sounds of a
teenager's practice session in the feature film Pretty Persuasion, for which she also served as Violin Consultant.
In addition to her exciting foray into the world of popular music, Melissa continues to play in
numerous symphony orchestras, both in the studio (commercial jingles and film/tv scores) and in concert
halls around the world.
She has toured Taiwan with the Hollywood Pops Orchestra and is a member of the
New West Symphony, which has enabled her to tour with
Andrea Bocelli and perform with such notables as
Pinchas Zukerman and Christopher O'Riley. She has toured Japan twice with the Percy Faith Orchestra and returns for a
third tour of Japan in May/June 2008. She performed in Great Britain in 2005 with the band "Kane" and is the lead violinist on the summer
2008 tour with the sensational young stars, The Jonas Brothers.
Melissa was featured in the "Departures" exhibit at the J. Paul Getty Museum in a film about a string quartet performance,
and has given many recitals as a soloist and chamber musician. She is currently working on her first solo album
(please see Music page) and is planning a recital this summer. Her distinctive
abilities brought her to the attention of The Los Angeles Times (please see Press page), and she was the subject
of a cover article in the Sunday Calendar section in July 2005.
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