Noted for her "extraordinary bell-like soprano" (Gramophone) and armed with a “clean and supple fioratura” and a “dewy-fresh” voice (Boston Globe), soprano Melanie Germond received a Master of Music with Distinction in Early Music Performance from Longy School of Music (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and a Bachelor of Arts in Voice from the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis). Major teachers include Nina Hinson and Laurie Monahan. She has also participated in master classes and workshops with Sequentia, Jill Feldman, Kees Boeke, William Christie, and Catherine King.
She is a founding member of LIBER: Ensemble for Early Music (formerly Liber unUsualis), with whom she has performed across North America and Europe for the past twelve years. The group won First Prize at the International Young Artist’s Presentation – Early Music (Belgium, 2002), and were semi-finalists at New York’s prestigious Concert Artists Guild Competition in 1999. In addition to these honors, the ensemble’s debut CD recording “Unrequited” was an unqualified artistic success, being voted one of the “Best of 2004” by Goldberg magazine, and hailed as “a most impressive recording” by Gramophone. Their second CD, “Flyleaves”, on the Passacaille label, has also drawn rave reviews.
Melanie has also performed with various other groups as a soloist and ensemble member, including the Scholars of Cambrai, Newberry Consort (Chicago, IL); Boston Secession, King’s Chapel Choir, Composers in Red Sneakers, Musica Sacra (Boston, MA); Brown University Choir, St. Stephen’s Schola Cantorum (Providence, RI); Waltham Abbey Singers, Early Music Ensemble of St. Paul, Bach Society of Minnesota, Ex Machina Baroque Opera Company (Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN); Musica Sonora, Cochise College Chamber Choir, and the bi-national choir Musica sin Fronteras (Southeastern AZ). She has also given solo recitals at the Harare International Festival of the Arts (Zimbabwe), Boston Early Music Festival Concurrent Events Series, and on WFMT Chicago’s Live from Studio One.
Melanie currently lives in the mountains of beautiful Bisbee, AZ with her husband and two small children and teaches voice at Cochise College.