Eric Melley

Eric Melley is a Graduate Assistant with the LSU Bands. He is pursuing a Master of Music in Wind Conducting degree. Prior to coming to LSU, Mr. Melley served as Director of Bands at Belmont High School (Massachusetts). Mr. Melley attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree concentrating in Trumpet Performance and Education in the spring of 2000. While at UMass, Mr. Melley studied trumpet with Professor Walter Chesnut and conducting with Professor Malcolm Rowell and Dr. Benedict Smar. Mr. Melley has served as the Assistant Director of the Maudslay Arts Center Community Concert Band in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and as guest conductor for the Charles River Wind Ensemble in Boston. In the fall of 2000, he began teaching music at the Chenery Middle School in the Belmont Public School System, where he taught instrumental lessons and the 7th and 8th grade Concert Band. In 2002, he accepted a position as Director of Bands at Belmont High School where his ensembles performed for audiences in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Prague, Budapest, Vienna, and Salzburg and have consistently earned superior ratings at regional and national festivals.

Active as a freelance trumpet player in Boston and throughout New England, Mr. Melley's performance credits include a performance for Pope John Paul II at World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto, Canada and membership in the Massachusetts Wind Orchestra, under the direction of Malcolm Rowell. He is a 3-time Downbeat Award winner, and a 1995 Grammy All-American.