Melanie O’Reilly
Waltons New School of Music Faculty
Voice (Jazz, Irish Traditional & Folk, Popular) • Introducing Singing for Adults • The Art & Craft of Songwriting Workshop • Songwriting Workshop • Sing & Swing Jazz Vocal Ensemble
Melanie is an internationally-recognised jazz performer, singer, songwriter and music educator. She has recorded seven albums and performed on eight compilations, her music has been featured on PBS television and she has won numerous awards from the Arts Council. She was lauded by Downbeat magazine as one of Ireland’s foremost jazz ambassadors, has performed at several international festivals, including the inaugural EU/USA Jazz Festival, where she represented Ireland at the Los Angeles Schoenberg Hall, and her recent tribute to jazz icon Anita O’Day show earned her four-star reviews at the Edinburgh Festival. She is a regular performer on radio and TV and is the creator and host of the award-winning RTÉ radio show Jazz on the Bay, now produced and broadcast monthly by KCSM in California. Melanie has extensive experience teaching songwriting, jazz voice and performance technique. She has taught at the Oakland School of the Arts, the New College of California in San Francisco, the California Jazz Conservatory and the University of California Berkeley’s CAL Extension programme, and she was a Visiting Scholar and Musician-in-Residence at the University of California Berkeley’s Celtic Studies programme from 2003 to 2009. Melanie is currently Jazz Artist in Residence at the Wexford Arts Centre, is a founding member of both the Wexford Normandy Cultural Association and the Jazz at Johnstown Festival, and has recently performed at the Wexford Festival, Culture Night, Farmleigh House, Rosslare Harbour Festival, Aberjazz Festival, and Keys Jazz Club in San Francisco, among others. She was also awarded Artist in Residence at La Mue Cultural centre and represented Ireland at the European Heritage Weekend in Normandy. She has taught with the New School since 2004. melanieoreilly.com ‘Music is what connects us to the world, lifts our spirits, feeds our minds and brings us together. As a vocalist and music educator, it is a joy for me to share this universal language with students of all ages, building confidence and expanding knowledge, innovation, concentration and creative teamwork, while at the same time having a lot of fun! It is my belief that everyone has music within them, and it is my aim to enable that inner creativity to be expressed and to develop, grow and flourish – whether singing or crafting a new song.’
a comprehensive music centre in the heart of Dublin.