Above Lt. Gwen, Ken and me doing "love in the form of sacred outrage" {MD, 2020), Gwen's "Untitled" and Baba Andrew Lamb's "Pretty Flowers" as WeFreeStrings Trio @ Chicago Jazz String Summit presented by Tomeka Reid. Museum of Art & Origins, Harlem NYC, May 9 2020. Above Rt. "Improvising Air, a meditation/offering on the meaning & memory of hands in creative isolation." MDyer, June 1 2020.
Melanie Dyer performs and composes in creative, improvised and through-composed music spheres. She trained with William Lincer (Principal Violist, New York Philharmonic), Lee Yeingst (Principal Violist, Colorado Symphony Orchestra), John Jake Kella (NY Metropolitan Opera) and Naomi Fellows (Colorado Symphony Orchestra); and studied viola performance at the LaMont School of Music/University of Denver.
Melanie founded WeFreeStrings, an improvising string/rhythm collective rooted in improvised music in 2011. From 2004 – 2013, under her Bb Universe banner and in collaboration with the multi-generational, multi-ethnic Scientific Soul Sessions collective, Melanie’s Harlem home became the scene of underground public performances by WeFreeStrings and other large and small music ensembles. Bb Universe hosted open rehearsals and performances, recordings, lectures, one-act plays and films including presentations by recognized indigenous activist Toaksin Ghosthorse, a performance of Robbie McCauley’s Sally’s Rape and a screening of John Douglas’ documentary, Grenada: The Future Coming Towards Us. These monthly and semi-monthly events brought cultural luminaries, emerging artists, social and environmental activists, working and under-employed people together. Open dialogues, emphasizing individuals as agents of change, were central to Bb Universe and Scientific Soul Sessions.
Melanie has recently performed with the Sun Ra Arkestra, Dead Lecturers, Heroes Are Gang Leaders, Baba Andrew Lamb, Gwen Laster’s New Muse 4tet, William Parker, Steve Swell's Watershed, Jason Kao Hwang's Myths of Origin, Janice Lowe/Tyehimbe Jess Millie & Christina project, Patricia Nicholson’s Women w an Axe to Grind. She’s played and/or recorded with Tomeka Reid Stringtet, Henry Grimes, Dave Burrell, Ramsey Ameen, Karen Borca, Tulivu Donna Cumberbatch, Nona Hendryx, Joe Bonner, Reggie Workman, Howard Johnson, David Haney, and many other notable musicians in Europe, South Africa and the U.S.
Recordings include WeFreeStrings Love In The Form Of Sacred Outrage (ESP-disk, 2022) and Fulfillment (Indepstrings, 2018), The Music of William Parker: Migration of Silence Into & Out of the Tone World (2021), Gwen Laster's Blue Lotus: New Muse 4tet (2021), Patricia Nicholson Parker No Joke (2021) David Haney’s Birth of a City (2019), Come Sunday (T. Cumberbatch, 2015); Dogon A.D. Revisited, Salim Washington (2018); Fred Ho & Quincy Saul Present the Music of Cal Massey: A Tribute (2011); Live at St Nick’s Pub, Salim Washington & Donald Smith Ensemble, Cadence Records (2007); With Strings, Salim Washington & The Harlem Arts Ensemble, CIMP Records (2007); Harlem Homecoming, Salim Washington & The Harlem Arts Ensemble, UJam Records (2005), and others.
After moving to NYC in 1981, Melanie began improvising with Makanda Ken McIntyre’s Contemporary African American Composers’ Orchestra and the Williamsburg Contemporary Music Orchestra. In Boston 1987, she became a regular on the city’s jazz scene performing weekly at Wally’s and Connolly’s Stardust Lounge as a side-musician for the Roxbury Blues Aesthetic. She brought her family of 6 to NYC in 2002, and started a 7-year weekly stint at St. Nick’s Pub in Harlem as part of the Donald Smith Quintet along with Tulivu Donna Cumberbatch, Ku’umbaa Frank Lacy, Andy McCloud, Mark Johnson, Salim Washington and a host of celebrated uptown musicians.
With composer/musician Salim Washington, Melanie sustained the Roxbury Blues Aesthetic nonet over 10 years, producing the ensemble’s only recording, Love In Exile (Accurate Records) featuring the great pianist Joseph Bonner. She continued to work with Washington as part of the 12-member Harlem Arts Ensemble (UJam, Cadence and CIMP Records), touring and recording with the band in the Northeast and Midwest, United States.
Melanie's published literary work appears in Gap-toothed Girlfriends: The Third Act anthology published by Third Act Press, 1984. Her creative work also involves visual art including sculpture, works on canvas, textiles and assemblage.
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