Melita White : Represented Artist
Melita White is an Australian composer, flute player, writer and poet. She has lived, worked and studied in Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne and regional Victoria. In the 90s, Melita played a key part in the new music scene in Adelaide, working with the experimental composer-performer group ACME New Music Co. (1993-1995) and with her own ensemble Auricle (1995-2001).
Melita was artistic director, concert manager, composer and performer with Auricle. The group premiered many new works by Australian composers. With Auricle, Melita developed innovative, themed concerts, including a touring program of works by Australian women composers that was recorded and broadcast by ABC FM's New Music Australia program. Auricle also provided employment for dozens of young, talented Adelaide musicians, introducing them to contemporary repertoire and enabling them to work directly with composers.
In 2000, Melita took part in a two-day composition workshop with composer Philip Glass in Perth. Soon after, she moved to Melbourne to study composition at Monash University with Catherine Schieve and Thomas Reiner. Melita completed a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) majoring in composition and a Master of Arts (Music Composition). She received numerous scholarships and awards as a student, including the Australian Postgraduate Award for her masters research into feminist composition.
Melita has created instrumental and electroacoustic works in a wide range of styles, including experimental works, her own 'Neoplastic' style of music (based on the work of artist Piet Mondrian), twelve-tone music, and musique concrète.
Her focus since the early 2000s has been on researching women's music, developing theories about feminist methods of composition, and creating a body of feminist works. This also formed the basis of her masters research and output.
Melita's recent work is based on feminist and personal themes, engages heavily with text and the voice, language and storytelling and is conceptual in nature. She enjoys finding sonic equivalences for what most people consider to be extramusical ideas and believes that the elements of a musical composition are a direct outcome and expression of the society in which they are created. She sees art and composition as powerful tools that can bring about personal and social awareness and change. Her writing and poetry also focus on similar feminist and personal themes.
Melita's music has been performed at the Barossa International Music Festival, The Adelaide Fringe Festival, the Australian Women's Music Festival, the London Portrait Gallery, the 2008 Beijing International Congress of Women in Music and at the ACMA 60X60 event in 2014. Both ACME and Auricle performed her music extensively over many years, and concerts by both groups were regularly recorded and broadcast by ABC FM and 5MBS FM. Her compositions have also been performed by renowned Australian flautist Geoffrey Collins, The Firm, Halcyon, The Seraphim Trio, and re-sound new music ensemble. Melita's music has been broadcast on radio stations including ABC Classic FM, 5MBS, and RTR FM's Difficult Listening program and she was interviewed live on New Music Australia by John Crawford in 1997.
Her most significant works include Pope Joan, an electroacoustic piece about the life of a female pope and Traces, an electroacoustic work about her father's experience of Alzheimer's disease. Melita received an Arts Development Grant from Arts Victoria to create Traces in 2008. Pope Joan was exhibited at Melbourne Now at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2013-14, an exhibition that was visited by 750,000 people. In 2019, Melita attended the New Course artists' residency at Arteles in Finland.
Melita White — current to September 2024