CDs / Scores
With All Things Gold, Melanie emerges onto the jazz scene from an unexpected place, a strictly-disciplined classical background. A lifetime of working closely with renowned composers catalyzed her own journey into composition. What emerges is her own unique brand of music - straight-up acoustic vocal jazz in a champagne glass – swinging, clean, cool and refined.
This disc boasts a stellar assortment of the best New York jazz musicians around: Matt King on piano, Andy Eulau on bass, and Scott Neumann on drums; rounded out with first-rate horn players Mike Lee (sax), Jim Cifelli (trumpet/flugelhorn), and Nick Afflitto (trumpet).
These 15 tracks, all penned by Mitrano with original music and lyrics, put the emphasis on story-telling. Her engaging lyrics draw audiences in, while her first-rate band provides the solid and rhythmic grid she spins her tales upon. Whether it’s good old-fashioned swing, a bossa, rhumba, pop ballad, or a gritty tune in an unusual meter, Mitrano uses whatever is takes to get her point
across, and she does it with skill and style.
Melanie's debut CD, Songs in Transit, features an eclectic selection of songs that are not merely classical, but a hybrid mixture of styles which includes jazz, blues, musical theater, popular music, rock, hip-hop, electronic and world music. All of it is woven into the complex tapestry that makes up “American” music. The disc highlights American poets and the composers themselves at the piano, among them two Pulitzer Prize winners: David Del Tredici and Paul Moravec. Also featured are renowned composers Lee Hoiby, Tom Cipullo, and Lori Laitman, as well as an original song cycle by Mitrano.
With her unique, unusually expressive voice, Melanie remains a strong force in today’s new music scene. She has the distinction of being one of the few classical singer-composers who writes, performs and records her own music.
Primary Studies in Vocal Chamber Music
is a collection of trios for solo voice, flute/clarinet/violin/oboe, and piano. The book contains ten musical scores complete with instrumental parts, based on traditional melodies and folk songs from around the world.
This series is aimed at providing an entree into the exciting world of collaborative music-making for the solo singer that is accessible to all levels and voice types. The arrangements are suitable for use in either a private vocal studio or group voice class. The vocal ranges of the selections are practical for all, deliberately within comfortable limits for any voice type. All scores are printed in concert key for the instructor’s ease. All lyrics are in English.
Each arrangement has two accompanying recordings: a study recording with all three parts to assist in learning the piece, and a practice track without the vocal line for class and individual rehearsal. These are available online for download at www.sheetmusicplus.com.
Winner of the 2011 Summit City Art Song Festival Composition Award, Phobias & Infatuations is a genre-crossing song cycle for female voice and piano. These eight songs combine elements of classical art song, musical theater and jazz. The songs may be sung as a complete ordered cycle, or grouped in any way the singer chooses.
With original music and texts, the composer explores her fascination with intense love and intense fear, seemingly disparate emotions, both having the power to consume one wholly. The infatuations create varied atmospheres of sheer ebullience, sexy languor, pure love and wistful yearning. These contrast sharply with the declamatory anxiety, biting sarcasm, and neurotic self-consciousness of the phobias.
