The Recovery - for solo violin, by Kraig Grady, 2024
Kraig sent me this piece in 2024, and I enjoyed it so much I put it on my faculty recital at Ursinus College February 9, 2025.
Poetry reading fundraiser at Imperfect Gallery in celebration of Ariel Monroe’s first book, Liminal Illumination: A Short Book of Intentional Poetry.
Powerful readings by women from Ariel’s world interwoven with live electric violin by Melinda Rice and movement by Ariel.
Book available at https://amzn.to/4iT9BUV Please be aware that this link is connected to Ariel’s Amazon Associate Account.
Video by Graphics by Greg.
The Water Cycle, composed by Teri Card Heller, lyrics by Melinda Rice
Performed February 9, 2025, at Ursinus College, by Gareth Haynes, piano, Melinda Rice, violin, and Nicole Snodgrass, soprano
This is from an on-going, bi-annual series of performances in Foy Park, Spring Mount that bring music to the sound of test sirens from the Limerick nuclear generating plant.
Tom Kraines, cello, Melinda Rice, viola, and Sepehr Pirasteh, alto kamancheh perform a set of loosely improvised, loosely composed pieces at Headlong on August 16, 2024 with People's Music Supply.
re:claim returned to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival for a second year with a site-specific spoken word and musical performance on September 8. Violinist Melinda Rice and poet Heather Bowlan present a piece performed at and inspired by Hansberry Garden, a community garden in southwest Germantown.
This project came about because of a kind offer from Thomas Patteson and Aaron Pond and People's Music Supply to create a work for the player piano. This piece comes from a data set I collected over the span of about three months and entered into a google sheet throughout my day, every day. https://www.peoplesmusicsupply.org/
The first in a planned series of shows that explore new music by playing the same piece of music on different instruments. Composition by Melinda Rice, created in collaboration with Philadelphia Small Works Gallery and with violinist Carlos Santiago. This performance took place on March 23, 2024.
The limerick generating plant’s two nuclear reactors provide energy for nearly two million homes in the area. This is a project in which Melinda plays music live in Foy Park, Spring Mount, PA with the test sirens that sound every six months from the plant. This iteration is the second performance, and took place on December 4, 2023. The next iteration will be on June 3, 2024.
In the latest iteration of Melinda and Heather’s conversation between words and music, they worked with Laurel Hill Cemetery to create a piece for Philly Fringe Fest based loosely around the lives of some of the people buried in the cemetery. Other instances of this collaboration include sound accompaniments to Heather’s poetry in conversation with Heather’s sound erasures/collaborative pieces, Highlights and Blackouts.
Water Cycle comes from conversations between Teri Car Heller and Melinda about humans’ mythical and scientific relationships with water. Premier performance was in North Bend, WA, November 5, 2023.
Murmurations takes its tentative name from the flocking of starlings, the sharing of choices, and the constant movement between outside/inside. This is documentation of Melinda’s songs, words, and compositional thoughts. They use an expanding array of voice, strings, bells, keyboard, synthesizer, sequencers, pedals, and whatever else is around, and ask trusted friends for advice. First iteration is Right Beneath the Moon.
Community Music School, Bach's Lunch Series
with Gareth Haynes, piano
March 17, 2022
For CMS's lunch series, we presented works by Florence Price, William Grant Still, Jules Massenet, as well as Amy K. Bormet, and myself.
Hosted by Craft in America's summer concert series, Melinda Rice and Amy K. Bormet met up at park halfway between their homes in PA and D.C. to improvise as pandemic quarantining was lifting. They returned to the music afterwards to shape and compose on top of their improvisations.
with Gareth Haynes, piano
Jillian Pirtle, soprano
October 2, 2021
In collaboration with MAHS, Melinda Rice programed this concert that includes works by Florence Price, William Grant Still, Adameo Roldan y Gardes, an arrangement by Rice and Pirtle of an American Spiritual, and arrangements by Rice of works by Ignatius Sancho and Francisca "Chiquinha" Gonzaga. The video was filmed at the Marian Anderson Historical Society and Museum, Marian Anderson's home in Philadelphia, PA.
February 2017
Part of The Industry's Second Take for new opera, this telling of Bonnie and Clyde's stories is performed as a concert.
This project came into being because of a collaboration with artist David Eng and the Cabrillo State Aquarium. To complement Eng’s artist lecture, we created an outdoor string quartet concert on the rocks above the water at the aquarium. The music was performed and recorded subsequently in other spaces.
album available here: https://melindarice.bandcamp.com/album/before-the-color-blue
From Melinda’s folk-inspired album released in March 2016, Let Someone In. Original tunes and arrangements. Album available for purchase, $13.
August 2016
Performed by Accordant Commons (Marja Liisa Kay, Tany Ling, Argenta Walther, Stephanie Aston)
American folk song
arranged by Melinda Rice
Isaura String Quartet
January 2017
Beautiful Isle of Somewhere
with Dan Zanes
and Harmony Project
May 2011