bio
Composer, producer, and educator Melissa Grey’s projects include concert works for acoustic instruments, electronics, and live processing, performances, installations, and concert and event curation. In her course, Sound Studies, at The New School, she works with students from across disciplines to introduce an awareness of the science, meaning, and perception of sound into their respective creative practices. Her work has received awards from the Department of Cultural Affairs, NYC; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Manhattan Community Arts Fund, American Music Center, Composer Assistance Program. She is a Board Member, Vice-President (2016-), of the violin duo, Miolina.
In 2016, she joined forces with composer-producer David Morneau, establishing a “wholly original” and “inventive” practice. Their work has received the following acclaim: “production is masterfully realized and consistently creative,” “beautiful and transcendent,” “hypnotic allure,” “a masterclass on how to utilize space,” “a masterpiece,” “a completely unique sonic world,” and “shows technical mastery… exudes fun… imaginative.”
Grey & Morneau recently released Always Becoming (2023), a collaborative composition with Robert Kirkbride (current spokesperson, founding trustee for PreservationWorks; former Dean, Parsons School of Constructed Environments). In 2022, they designed a soundscape for the exhibition space for The Empty S(h)elf, a project by the artist-curator Angela Grauerholz, in collaboration with designer Réjean Myette, at Occurrence – Space in Montreal. Grey & Morneau were awarded the 2018 Joan C. Edwards Distinguished Professors of the Arts, College of Arts and Media, School of Music, Marshall University in West Virginia, and were the subjects of the documentary Ao Vivo no Casarão | Lado B by Cristina Gagnebin Müller & Yuri Pires Tavares. Other commissions include: Photon Ecstasy (2016), with artist Dan Rose, featured at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Philadelphia, PA, and mem mer mère (2019) with cellist Kate Dillingham at the Cultural Center at the Havre de Grace Opera House, Maryland.
In addition to their production and composition practice, Grey & Morneau, since 2014, have jointly curated and produced numerous concert events, including Soft Series, a concert series dedicated to presenting soft premieres and introducing new audiences to new music. This series was live-streamed from Clocktower Radio (“one of the first all-art online museum radio stations in the world”).
