Volume 26 Issue 6 - March and April 2021

With some assistance from her sibling, Genia, with mastering and
violin (and with the addition of a new microphone and a two-channel
mixer), Melbourne produced a second album titled Dear Serenity.
She then went on to create videos for some of the pieces, filming and
editing them all on her iPad. Did I mention that she does everything
on the first take? The more I talk with this extraordinary and multifaceted
artist, the more I am astounded.
Trained as a classical pianist, Melbourne has a licentiate diploma
in piano performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music. “It is
the equivalent to a bachelor’s degree, and you can go into postgraduate
studies from there,” she informs me. Melbourne has had significant
success in the contemporary and classical music worlds. She has
performed internationally, at Toronto’s Koerner Hall, and recently in
Besançon, France where she was composer, musical director and principal
accompanist for the Ciné Concert silent film festival.
Despite deep roots in contemporary and classical music, Melbourne
has always been open to all styles of music. “My parents were touring
musicians. The only thing they did not play was classical music and
I ended up being trained in it,” she says. “I grew up on 90s R&B, hip
hop, jazz, blues, country, reggae and soca. I love heavy metal. I find my
inspiration in everything.”
Beyond Opera
Tapestry Opera’s artistic director and general manager Michael
Hidetoshi Mori first encountered Melbourne’s work at the lifetime
achievement celebration of composer Alexina Louie, held at Toronto’s
Arts and Letters Club in 2019. Melbourne performed one of Louie’s
pieces. Mori says that what he witnessed was a very young woman
playing extraordinarily difficult music with passion, poise, grace and
exceptional ability. “Since then, I’ve seen the whole songwriting side
to Morgan, as I follow her on Instagram,” he adds. “She has the chops
to be up there with the best of the interpreters of contemporary classical
music and also has the sensibility of a singer-songwriter. She is
already exploring what it’s like to be a multidimensional artist.”
In early 2020, Tapestry Opera was able to pivot their programming
and presentations rapidly in response to the COVID-19
pandemic. “We’re a new works development company,” explains
Mori. “Reinvention was important to us before the pandemic hit. The
capacity for change was there already. We decided to rethink a season,
boldly called ‘Immune to Cancellation,’” he laughs. They reinvested
some of the budget of the cancelled 2020 production of the opera
Rocking Horse Winner, originally presented by Tapestry in 2016, into
training performers and staff on recording software and technologies
for collaboration. The opera was successfully presented online and
on CBC Radio, reaching a much larger audience than it would have
playing to full houses in a Toronto venue.
The contemporary opera company first came on my radar with the
presentation of a fully improvised online concert by jazz musician
Robi Botos in October 2020. Mori felt that working with Melbourne
would be another great fit for their innovative programming. He
contacted her, suggesting a performance in collaboration with a
dancer. “This felt like an exciting potential to bring the storytelling you
can do with dance [together with the] storytelling that Morgan brings
with her whole package of being a composer and interpreter,” he says.
Take One
Melbourne’s resourcefulness and improvisational focus has on
some level come from working with limitations. She works at home
with an electric piano, not the acoustic piano of competition and
concert stages. “I do a lot of sight reading, and I hear the music in my
head,” she says.
Her clarity of vision started early when she entered the classical
music competition world. “‘Oh, I’m surprised that you are here and
you played like that,’ one adjudicator told me. Some other performers
told me that Black people don’t belong in classical music, and that I
should be playing jazz,” she recalls. “They would do this, nearly every
time, ten minutes before I had to go up to perform.”
Such comments came from teachers, adjudicators, other performers
and their parents. “I went into competition when I was nine. This
GISELLE ROSEPIGUE
My parents were
touring musicians.
The only thing they
did not play was
classical music and
I ended up being
trained in it!
occurred every year until I was 17, when they realized that I’m not
going anywhere. It was insane!” she says. “Early on, I had to learn how
to block out a lot.”
In response, Melbourne developed the skill of razor-sharp focus,
which allows her to perform deeply and well on the first take – of
anything. In her brilliant self-made video for the piece ‘Say Their
Names’, she stands looking at the camera, going through all manner of
emotion, while the names of Black people murdered by police appear
and dissolve around her onscreen. The performance was recorded on
the first and only take.
Where Do I Go?
Melbourne brings her compositions, improvisations and voice to
a bold new genre-bending performance for Tapestry Opera, titled
Where Do I Go? This sonic journey is a coming-of-age story, exploring
struggles with society, mental health and a young woman’s evolution
towards resilience and success.
Alyssa Martin
Morgan-Paige Melbourne
Natasha Poon Woo
The presentation is a collaboration with contemporary dancer
Natasha Poon Woo and director/choreographer Alyssa Martin, of Rock
Bottom Movement. Poon Woo brings “additional layers to the narrative,
communicating a version of these messages from the perspective
of movement,” says Melbourne.
Presented by Tapestry Opera via livestream on March 27, 2021, this
performance is one of many to come from Morgan-Paige Melbourne,
a truly exciting, multidimensional artist. Where will she go? Keep
watching. I see her on a trajectory that will take her through a multitude
of cultural venues and concert halls across Canada and abroad.
Gloria Blizzard is a non-fiction writer, poet and penner of songs,
whose wordsmithing has appeared in numerous literary
publications, magazines and sound recordings. She is currently
completing her first full-length book, a collection of essays, and can
be reached at www.gloriablizzard.com.
IAN CHANG DREW BERRY
thewholenote.com March and April 2021 | 11