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Mellasenah Edwards, violin
Dr. Mellasenah I. Edwards is a devoted educator and performer. She currently teaches at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Maryland and at the Baltimore School for the Arts where she also serves as the Music Department Head.
She has appeared nationally as soloist and recitalist, and has performed with such festivals as the Aspen Music Festival, the Spoleto Festival, the Contemporary Music Theatre Festival, the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, the Gateways Festival, the Amelia Island Festival and the Wintergreen Music Festival. She appeared with the Ritz Chamber Players in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and her performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio and on WYNC in New York City.
Dr. Edwards has served on the faculty at the Petrie School of Music of Converse College and as Music Department Chair and Violin Instructor at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. Her students have been accepted to schools such as the Oberlin Conservatory, the Cincinnati Conservatory, the Eastman School of Music, Hartt School of Music, the North Carolina School for the Arts, and the Boston Conservatory among others. She has been an adjudicator at numerous pre-college and college level competitions, a clinician at conferences sponsored by the South Carolina Music Teachers Association and the American String Teachers Association, and a panelist on forums on the arts.
Mellasenah has given solo recitals in Maryland, Virginia, Alabama, New York, Connecticut, Georgia, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. She has played with professional symphony orchestras, ballet orchestras and opera orchestras throughout the United States. Currently she is an associate member of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra – Ohio and performs regularly as a sub with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Dr. Edwards received undergraduate and graduate degrees in performance from the Eastman School of Music, the Yale School of Music, and the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University. Her teachers have included Shirley Givens, Sylvia Rosenberg, Peter Salaff, and Syoko Aki. She served as teaching assistant to Shirley Givens at Peabody Conservatory and as a teaching assistant at Yale University teaching undergraduate students.