
Long recognized as one of North America’s leading performers on recorder and historical flutes, Toronto-born Alison Melville first began playing in an after-school class in junior school, in London, UK.
Her extraordinary breadth of experience as a performer on recorders and historical flutes comprises solo and chamber music recitals; music for dance, theatre, film and television; orchestral work with modern and period instrument orchestras; concerts in venues more varied than you can imagine, from Boston’s Jordan Hall or Tokyo’s Bunkamura Theatre to inner-city schools, ferry boats and prisons; musical repertoire from the 12th to 21st centuries, composed, arranged and improvised; and music from Celtic and Scandinavian traditions. She plays medieval, renaissance, baroque and modern recorders; renaissance, baroque and classical flutes and one-keyed piccolo; and Norwegian seljefløyte.
Trained in Toronto, London, and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis as the winner of numerous awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, her career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player has taken her across Canada and the USA and to Iceland, Japan, New Zealand and Europe.
