Age, Biography and Wiki
Myra Melford was born on 5 January, 1957 in Evanston, Illinois, U.S., is an American jazz pianist and composer. Discover Myra Melford's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is she in this year and how she spends money? Also learn how she earned most of networth at the age of 67 years old?
Popular As |
N/A |
Occupation |
Musician, composer |
Age |
67 years old |
Zodiac Sign |
Capricorn |
Born |
5 January 1957 |
Birthday |
5 January |
Birthplace |
Evanston, Illinois, U.S. |
Nationality |
United States
|
We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 5 January.
She is a member of famous Musician with the age 67 years old group.
Myra Melford Height, Weight & Measurements
At 67 years old, Myra Melford height not available right now. We will update Myra Melford's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible.
Physical Status |
Height |
Not Available |
Weight |
Not Available |
Body Measurements |
Not Available |
Eye Color |
Not Available |
Hair Color |
Not Available |
Dating & Relationship status
She is currently single. She is not dating anyone. We don't have much information about She's past relationship and any previous engaged. According to our Database, She has no children.
Family |
Parents |
Not Available |
Husband |
Not Available |
Sibling |
Not Available |
Children |
Not Available |
Myra Melford Net Worth
Her net worth has been growing significantly in 2023-2024. So, how much is Myra Melford worth at the age of 67 years old? Myra Melford’s income source is mostly from being a successful Musician. She is from United States. We have estimated Myra Melford's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets.
Net Worth in 2024 |
$1 Million - $5 Million |
Salary in 2024 |
Under Review |
Net Worth in 2023 |
Pending |
Salary in 2023 |
Under Review |
House |
Not Available |
Cars |
Not Available |
Source of Income |
Musician |
Myra Melford Social Network
Timeline
Myra Melford (born January 5, 1957) is an American avant-garde jazz pianist and composer.
Shortly thereafter, she switched her major to music, and in 1980 attended Cornish College of the Arts and studied with Art Lande and Gary Peacock.
Melford moved to New York City in 1984, where she studied composition with saxophonist Henry Threadgill, whom she would later cite as a major influence on her perception of organic composition.
She also studied privately with pianists Jaki Byard and Don Pullen, whose percussive mannerisms she adapted.
After arriving in New York, Melford performed in the bands of Threadgill, Leroy Jenkins, and Butch Morris, among others.
Her career accelerated in the early 1990s, as she participated in the first Knitting Factory tour of Europe, and recorded three albums with Horner and Nicholson: Jump (1990), Now & Now (1991), and Alive in the House of Saints, a live album, in 1993.
Later in the 1990s, Melford moved toward larger groupings with diverse instrumentation, and added trumpeter Dave Douglas and reed player Marty Ehrlich to her trio lineup to create a quintet, the Myra Melford Extended Ensemble.
Their self-titled debut album was released on Gramavision in 1996, followed by 1999's Above Blue on Arabesque.
Melford also appeared as an improvisational collaborator on the 1996 Hatology release Eleven Ghosts, featuring duets performed with Dutch drummer Han Bennink; and Equal Interest, a 1999 Omnitone release by the trio of the same name, featuring Melford with Jenkins and Joseph Jarman of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
With Equal Interest, Melford performed on harmonium as well as piano.
By the close of the decade, Melford had become one of the downtown jazz scene's most celebrated performers and composers, with the Seattle Times describing her in 1999 as an "explosive pianist who alternately caresses and pounds the keyboard and weaves brilliant swatches of composed material into free-form improvisation."
In 2000, Melford formed Crush, a trio in which she played piano and harmonium with Kenny Wollesen on drums and Stomu Takeishi on electric bass.
Arabesque released the trio's Dance Beyond the Color later that year.
In September, she traveled to Calcutta to study harmonium with Sohanlal Sharma as a Fulbright scholar.
She spent several months with Sharma, focusing on raga and Hindustani classical music, and continued her studies with other musicians in Delhi and Rajistan.
After returning to the United States, Melford lived at an upstate New York ashram.
She subsequently formed an ensemble expressly to play music based on her studies in India, Myra Melford's Be Bread.
Melford relocated to Berkeley, California in 2004 to accept a position as Professor of contemporary improvisational music, University of California Berkeley.
Although it remained unreleased until 2006, Be Bread's debut album, The Image of Your Body (whose title was derived from a Rumi poem), was recorded in 2003, as was Where the Two Worlds Touch by Myra Melford's The Tent, released by Arabesque.
In 2006, along with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Matt Wilson, Melford formed Trio M, who released their debut album, The Big Picture, on Cryptogramophone in 2007.
It was followed by The Guest House on Enja/Yellowbird in 2012.
Melford performs with clarinetist/composer Ben Goldberg, who she met just after she moved to Berkeley, in the duo Dialogue.
A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, Melford was described by the San Francisco Chronicle as an "explosive player, a virtuoso who shocks and soothes, and who can make the piano stand up and do things it doesn't seem to have been designed for."
Melford was born in Evanston, Illinois and was raised in a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
At 3, she started playing the piano on her own, climbing onto the piano bench and improvising.
She began taking lessons when she was in kindergarten.
She developed a strong relationship with her teacher, Erwin Helfer, a classically trained boogie-woogie player.
Helfer introduced her to classical composers such as Bach before moving on to contemporary composers, such as Bartók, and later taught her to play the blues.
Melford attended blues festivals, and because of her relationship with Helfer, she was often invited backstage, where she encountered many of Chicago's most acclaimed performers.
Independently, Melford also began to explore improvisation.
Pushed towards performing classical repertoire, Melford attended a Northwestern University extension program in junior high school.
She described her experience as a classical piano student as "not right," and while she continued to play informally, she stopped her formal studies in high school.
Melford enrolled at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where she intended to study environmental science.
Although she was not then listening to jazz, and had not grown up listening to it, she knew that it involved improvisation, and when she saw an advertisement for jazz piano lessons in a local restaurant, she began studying again.
She recalled that, during the next few years, "There were two records... which were on constant repeat: Cecil Taylor's Air Above Mountains and Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come."