Melanie A. Riordan

Violinist Melanie Riordan is a unique performer and passionate educator, with private music studios in Gowanus, Brooklyn and Stony Brook, NY. As an educator, Melanie is passionate about using music as a way to uplift children. She was one of the first educators to launch the Houston Youth Symphony Coda Music program and has been a guest instructor for Sistemang Pilipino in Cebu City, Philippines, the Miami Music Project, and the Nat King Cole “Generation Hope” music camp in partnership with Lynn University and the Plumosa School for the Arts. All of these programs are inspired by the famed Venezuelan music education program “El Sistema”, providing free music education and instruments to underprivileged and at-risk children. She is the Artistic Director and Founder of the Summer Strings Academy for Girls, a summer festival dedicated to empowering young women through intensive instrumental training and seminars. She has received her pedagogical training with Mimi Zweig and Brenda Brenner at Indiana University and her Suzuki Violin Method training under the guidance of Suzuki legends Charles Krigbaum, Edmund Sprunger, and Ed Kreitman. She is also highly influenced by her own violin teachers, Jennifer Frautschi, Arnaud Sussmann, Hagai Shaham, Phil Setzer, Carole Cole, Kirsten Yon, and Jonathan Crow. Melanie is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stony Brook University, after serving as adjunct professor of violin at Florida Atlantic University and the Violin teacher for the West Palm Beach Suzuki School of Music. She is currently accepting all level students on violin and viola in Stony Brook, NY and Brooklyn, NY.

To learn more about Melanie, please visit her website HERE