Andrew Pelletier, horn, and Laura Melton, piano
January 6, 2006
Dr. Andrew Pelletier, horn
Grammy Award-winning soloist and chamber musician Andrew Pelletier regularly performs across the United States. He was the first-prize winner of the 1997 and 2001 American Horn Competition, appeared as a soloist at the International Horn Society Annual Symposia in 1997, 2003 and 2005, and is in demand for artistic residencies and clinics at universities and music schools. As a member of Southwest Chamber Music, he won a 2005 Grammy Award for Best Classical Recording (small ensemble category).
The former principal horn of the Santa Barbara Symphony, Ann Arbor Ballet Theatre, Michigan Symphonietta, Long Beach Camerata, Maine Chamber Ensemble and Portland (Maine) Ballet, Dr. Pelletier performs regularly with the Toledo and Ann Arbor Symphonies, and has also performed with the New West Symphony, Portland (Maine) Symphony and Portland Opera Repertory Theatre. He spent over seven years as an active freelance performer in Los Angeles and can be heard on film soundtracks including Lethal Weapon 4, The X-Men, Against the Ropes and Frequency, as well as various television movies for Lifetime and the Sci-Fi television networks.
Dr. Pelletier holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern Maine and master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Southern California. His primary teachers are John Boden and James Decker and trumpeter Roy Poper. Dr. Pelletier has recorded for Cambria Master Classics and Delos labels, has had articles published for the International Horn Society, New York Brass Conference and the Norwegian Horn Society, and taught at the Portland (Maine) Conservatory of Music, University of Southern California, and Moorpark College before coming to BGSU in 2004.
Laura Melton, piano
Coordinator of the Keyboard Studies Division at BGSU, Dr. Laura Melton has been a prize winner in several major international competitions including the Mendelssohn Competition in Berlin, the New York Recital Division of the Joanna Hodges Competition, the National Symphony Orchestra's Young Artist Competition and the 1998 Mu Phi Epsilon Competition. She was also a semi-finalist in the Orleans International Competition in France and the Concurso International de Ejecucion Musical in Vina del Mar, Chile, as well as the only remaining American in the semi-finals of the 1991 Clara Haskil Competition in Switzerland.
Dr. Melton's orchestral appearances include the Freiburg Musikhochschulorchester of Freiburg, Germany, the San Francisco Chamber Players and the International Chamber Orchestra of Idyllwild, California. She has made numerous appearances on radio and television, including an appearance on National Public Radio's Performance Today in celebration of the birthday of American composer John Corigliano. She has made appearances at several summer music festivals including Ravinia, Aspen, Sarasota, and festivals in Holland, Switzerland and Germany, and is currently on the summer faculty at the Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan. Her students have won numerous competitions and awards.
Dr. Melton holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland at College Park as a student of Nelita True, a master's degree from the University of Southern California under John Perry and a doctorate from Rice University where she was a graduate fellow and John Perry's teaching assistant. She spent three years in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar, earning the solistendiplom while studying with Robert Levin at the Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik in Freiburg. Prior to her BGSU appointment, she was on the faculty of the Idyllwild Arts Academy in California. |