About | Melissa Hullman
Jane performs Lalo's Symphonie Espagnol
Baltimore violinist and performance coach Melissa Hullman's career features teaching appointments to the Performing Arts and Medicine faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, the full-time violin faculty and viola faculty of the Peabody Preparatory, and masterclasses, teacher trainings, and presentations in the US and abroad. Her pre-college and college-level students have garnered top prizes at national and international competitions, studying at the Juilliard School, Yale School of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, San Francisco Conservatory, Oberlin Conservatory, and the Peabody Conservatory, among others.
Recognized for her work as a specialist in musicians' injury recovery and prevention, musicians' movement retraining, and peak performance, Melissa Hullman has worked with members of major symphony orchestras, faculty at conservatories across the US, and pre-professionals preparing for competitions and auditions, hailing from The Juilliard School, Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra, New England Conservatory, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Sphinx Virtuosi, Peabody Conservatory, "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, Eastman School of Music, Sphinx Symphony, The University of Michigan, Boston Philharmonic, National Conservatory of Colombia, Bogota Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, Soulful Symphony, Music Institute of Chicago, Boston University, Rice University, and others. Her work has included presentations for the American String Teacher's Association National Conference, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Peabody Conservatory, and the Sphinx Organization, and more.
As faculty and course developer for the Playing Well Anatomy+Movement series at Peabody Conservatory, she has contributed course material on the application of the principles of biomechanics and kinesiology in violin performance. In 2015-2016, she served on Johns Hopkins'/Peabody Conservatory's Music and Medicine Task Force, a joint advisory committee which provided recommendations for the formation of the Johns Hopkins Center for Music and Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Rehabilitation Network Clinic for Performing Artists at Peabody. She has also served on the SmartGuitar development team, a collaboration between Johns Hopkins School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the Peabody Conservatory, and was a research team member for a musicians' dystonia study at Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.
Melissa Hullman currently teaches privately in Baltimore and is co-director of Young Musicians of Baltimore. She has served as President of the MD/DC Chapter of the American String Teachers Association, and has been Assistant to the Chair for the ASTA National Solo Competition and Chair of the MD/DC ASTA Solo Competition. She has adjudicated numerous competitions and events, including locally, the Columbia Orchestra Young Artist Competition, Pennsylvania/Delaware State Chapter's ASTA Certificate Exams, Peabody Honors Competition, and Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestras Concerto Competition, among others.
Locally, her pre-college violin and viola students have been honored to perform as featured soloists in performances with Full Circle Dance Company, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestra, Baltimore All County Honors Orchestra, the Vagabond Players, at Maryland Artscape, and on the Education Channel; as first chair players in orchestras throughout the region, including the Maryland All-State Orchestras, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Side-by-Side Concert, Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestras, Peabody Youth Orchestra, Baltimore All-County Junior and Senior Honors Orchestras, Maryland Youth Symphony Orchestra, and the FAME Youth Chamber Orchestra; and as prizewinners in competitions including the Peabody Honors Recital and MD/DC American String Teachers Association Strings Plus Chamber Music Festival. They have auditioned for and attended summer music festivals in the US and Canada, including Music Academy of the West, Tanglewood (BUTI), Heifetz Institute, Sphinx Performance Academy, Point Counterpoint, Music at Port Milford, and Interlochen.
Violinist Melissa Hullman has been invited to share the stage at such diverse venues as the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, the Kennedy Center, Canadian Music Week, the World Bank, Bethlehem Musikfest, Maryland Artscape, and Brooklyn's Jalopy Theatre. Her ongoing solo project series VIO/LUMINA plays on the edge of possibility by using improvised and composed solo works to illuminate the current state of violin playing as an art form, fusing the depth and breadth of music now with the brilliance of the classical tradition.
Locally, Melissa Hullman has appeared as a featured soloist on the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's Concerts and Conversations series, the BMA's Art After Hours series, and on the St Louis Church Concert Series, among others. As an orchestral musician, she has premiered and performed new works in performances with Inscape Chamber Orchestra and the Ann Arbor Symphony, and as a high-school aged violinist won her first orchestral audition as a member of the York Symphony Orchestra. She performs regularly as a duo with her husband, cellist Doug Jameson, and is a founding member of the Victoria Piano Trio.
At home playing notes on the page or off the cuff, her musical collaborations range from solo, chamber, and orchestral playing to tango, jazz, folk, free improv, and Balkan, African, and Indian music. Her projects include albums featuring composer Jonathan Leshnoff, Americana songwriter Caleb Stine, Montreal indie folk band Frank Feutre, and singer/songwriter Ellen Cherry; and performances with jazz pianists César Orozco and Marc Irwin, tango trio with Jake Leckie and Susan Alcorn, and Indian music with Carnatic vocalist K.S. Resmi and percussionist N. Scott Robinson.