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Melissa Douglas : Associate Artist


Photo of Melissa Douglas

Photo: Ruth Appleby

Melissa Douglas is an Australian composer and piano teacher based in Melbourne. She is currently the 2023 Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Cybec Young Composer in Residence. Her compositions have been performed in Australia, the UK and Europe.

Melissa has been commissioned by a variety of musicians and festivals. She has written for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, PLEXUS, BBC Singers, pianists Clare Hammond and Grace Francis, the Magnard Ensemble, the Polaris Duo and the Royal Northern College of Music's Brand New Orchestra.

Melissa's music has been described as evocative, transportative, dramatic and versatile. She composes concert hall music (solo, chamber and orchestral works) and also has experience composing for other art forms, such as visual art, short film and opera.

In 2021 Melissa was commissioned by the Cybec Foundation and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to compose for the MSO as part of the 2021 Cybec Composers program. She was commissioned by PLEXUS in 2019 to compose a piece for the Alexander Calder: Radical Inventor exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, premiered by PLEXUS. Her piano piece, Solo Gratia, performed by Grace Francis, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2015 and digitally released on Launch Music International and iTunes.

Melissa holds a Bachelor of Music from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, where she studied Piano with Elizabeth Mitchell and Composition with Elliott Gyger and Katy Abbott. After receiving an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Award and RNCM Scholarship to study Composition abroad, she continued postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom at the Royal Northern College of Music (2014-16). She studied Composition with Professors Adam Gorb, David Horne and Paul Patterson, graduating with an MMus in Composition with Distinction in 2016. Melissa was the recipient of the Royal Northern College of Music Patricia Cunliffe Composition Prize in 2015.


Melissa Douglas — current to August 2023

Selected Commissions

  Work Commission Details
Digital sheet music sample Spheres (duos: saxophone, harp) (2018) Commissioned by Polaris Duo.
Digital sheet music sample Solo Gratia : for solo piano (2015) Commissioned by BBC Radio 3 in celebration of International Women's Day