About Melissa
Composer/librettist Melissa C. Shiflett began her career as resident composer for the experimental Dream Theater at the Body Politic Theatre in Chicago. Her primary focus has been creating works that integrate her own original stories, librettos and music. She also loves to collaborate with other librettists and to compose purely instrumental works. Her operas have been performed in Minnesota, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York City, although her closest association has been with the American Chamber Opera Company in New York City. They have produced three premieres of her operas and two workshop productions. This has given her the opportunity to be involved as a collaborator in the shaping of her chamber operas on the stage.
Two of her recent piano trios were performed by the Bronx piano trio di.vi.sion. In 2023, di.vi.sion will premiere her just completed work: The Horses’ Quintet for Piano Trio, English Horn, and jazz drum set. Last summer, pianist Anna Manalo gave a premiere performance of Ms. Shiflett’s newest piano solo, The Birds at North Pond at the Blue Gallery in Manhattan. Ducks, horses and outdoor settings (city gardens—as in her song-story cycle The Rose Saga) often set the scenes for Ms. Shiflett’s work; she creates drama in unexpected places.
She lived in New York City for over 30 years, raising a daughter, and teaching piano and composition at the 92nd St. Y. During that time Ms. Shiflett received productions of her operas (full productions, workshops and concert readings) in various New York venues as La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, New Dramatists, St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn, the West Kortright Centre, the Liederkrantz Club, Theatre of the Riverside Church, University Settlement in the East Village, Music Under Construction’s loft on 18th Street, and the first annual New York City Opera’s Vox: Showcasing American Composers at the Miller Theater.
In 2020 she moved back to Chicago, her native city, close to the park, ponds and beautiful Lake Michigan. She lives with her husband, Yuri, who has filmed and edited her last two operas, My Undying Love: An Amusement and Lisa’s Room: A Dream.
Ms. Shiflett has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the Margaret Jory Copying Assistance Program of the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, and a Diverse Forms Artist Grant (funded by the NEA, Rockefeller Foundation and Jerome Foundation) to complete the orchestration of her opera Dora, composed to a libretto by Nancy Fales Garrett. Other honors include three residencies at The Pennsylvania Opera Theatre in Philadelphia (funded by Opera America), and one glorious month in the wilds at The Ucross Foundation Artist Residency Program in Wyoming.
