Melanie Williams

Melanie Williams enjoys an active career performing solo, chamber, opera, and choral repertoire.  The lyric soprano earned the MM and the DMA in Vocal Performance at Louisiana State University, where she studied with Metropolitan Opera soprano Martino Arroyo and  New York City Opera tenor Robert Grayson.  Her most notable operatic roles include Papagena in Opera Birmingham’s Die Zauberflöte, Berta in the company’s production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and Olympia in Baton Rouge Opera’s Le Contes d’Hoffman.  She has also sung several leading roles in operas by Gian Carlo Menotti with Alabama OperaWorks, including Monica in The Medium, Lucy in The Telephone, and Laetitia in The Old Maid and the Thief.  Other leading roles with the company include “The Girl” in the Jack Beeson opera Hello, Out There, Valerie in the American premiere of the Amy Cheney Beach opera The Cabildo, and the title roles in Gustav Holst’s Savitri and the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta Iolanthe. 

 Williams has twice traveled to England as soprano soloist for the International Cathedral Music Festival, performing in London, Canterbury, and Salisbury.  Concert appearances in the Southeast include engagements with the Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, and Kingsport Symphonies, as well as the Red Mountain Chamber Orchestra, Colla Voce choral ensemble, and as soprano soloist in Carmina Burana with the Jacksonville State University combined choirs and orchestra. As a frequent collaborator with guitarist Alan Goldspiel and a founding member of the LeBaron Trio with clarinetist Lori Ardovino and pianist Laurie Middaugh, Williams enjoys performing solo and chamber music concerts throughout the United States, including recent concerts in Los Angeles, California, Flagstaff, Arizona, and Seaside, Florida.  Dr. Williams is Professor of Music at the University of Montevallo, where she teaches Applied Voice, Vocal Pedagogy, and English and French Diction.  Governor of the Alabama District of the National Association of Teachers of Singing from 2005-2008, she presently serves Governor of the NATS Southeastern Region.  She and husband, Mark, reside in Birmingham, Alabama with their children, Anna Katherine and John Mark.