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Melinda Faylor is a Filipina American pianist/composer with a background in classical piano performance and interdisciplinary work. Her current projects include an electroacoustic album for piano and electronics featuring sounds of the Kulintang (a traditional percussion ensemble of the Philippines), and her interdisciplinary piece MeMeMeMe featuring violinist Charlotte Munn-Wood.

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Melinda Faylor, a native of New York City, received her BM from the Oberlin Conservatory and her MM in piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music. She has worked extensively with electronics and has performed original electroacoustic music at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, Hofstra University (NY), the Performance Garage (PA), the Firehouse Space (NY), Spectrum (NY), Grounds for Sculpture (NJ), Andrea Clearfield’s Salon (PA), the Home Audio series (NY), the Park Church Co-op (NY), the Brooklyn Public Library and the North Brooklyn Arts Festival. In 2018 Ms Faylor was an artist in residence at the Cannery in South Penobscot, ME for work on her Kulintang, piano and electronics project.

Ms Faylor has travelled throughout Australia and South East Asia: to study Gamelan in Bali, and to perform concerts in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. She has been a member of Cultures in Harmony, a NY based NPO that encourages cultural dialogue across boundaries through the use of music. She has travelled with CIH to the Philippines to give master classes and concerts at several institutions including the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

As a collaborative artist, Ms Faylor has worked extensively with dance. Her long time interest in John Cage, in particular his aleatoric practices, led her to co-create several scores for music and dance with Loren Groenendaal and the Vervet Dance Company of Philadelphia, PA. She was also a founding member of Dames en Feu, a multimedia electronic cabaret/fire dancing ensemble for whom she composed electronic and instrumental music and performed.

As a chamber musician, Ms Faylor has performed with the Mimesis Ensemble, Ensemble 212, Tenth Intervention, the Curiosity Cabinet, and for composers Joe Diebes, Sugar Vendil and Charles Waters. She has performed the interdisciplinary work of others at the NYC International Fringe Festival, the Great Hall at Cooper Union, National Sawdust, the Stone, the Stone at the New School, Knockdown Center, the Joyce Theater, Dixon Place, Roulette, Issue Project Room, and the Target Margin Theater.

In addition to her work as performer/composer, Ms Faylor has produced and co-produced several concert series, including Semi-Composed: Metamorphosis (2017) with the Vervet Dance Company; Burning Pianos: the Firehouse Space Two Piano Festival (2014); Get Your Gamel-on! with pianist Manon Hutton-DeWys (2011-2012) and a NYC-wide John Cage festival in honor of the composer’s Centennial (2012). She has been featured on the Airborne Event on WFMU, alongside percussionist and collaborator Frederick Trumpy, for their work on reviving the John Cage radio play The City Wears a Slouch Hat. Additional radio segments include appearances on DZFE (Manilla, Philippines) and 3MBS (Melbourne, Australia).

Current projects include a solo electroacoustic album, her interdisciplinary theater piece MeMeMeMe, and a setting of Christina Newhard’s Sari Sari Storybooks collection (Filipino children’s books) to music. MeMeMeMe is a series of generative performances in four parts, building upon experiments with meme and emoji language through parlor games and emoji tarot card divination. Ms Faylor is a former church organist and music director. She was the founder and Artistic Director of the Areté Venue and Gallery in Greenpoint, Brooklyn from 2017-2020.