Melanie O’Reilly Music
Dublin-born Melanie has become one of Ireland’s internationally known jazz singers. Having lived and worked some years in Scotland and then California USA, she is now resident in Wexford. Melanie has performed extensively throughout France, Britain, Ireland, Norway, and the USA, including representing Ireland at the Schoenburg Hall Los Angeles and again at the European Heritage Festival in Normandy in 2019. She was a Visiting Scholar /Musician in Residence at UC Berkeley’s Celtic Studies and received an award for “Artist with Extraordinary ability” by the US. While in the Bay Area, she sang regularly in jazz clubs in San Francisco Bay Area and was known as a Bay Area Treasure.
Back in Ireland she was Jazz Artist in Residence at Wexford Arts Centre, has created her Jazz Appreciation and Outreach series, performed her own unique song compositions for National Culture Night and has performed her Swing Jazz series to sell-out audiences. Her tribute to legendary vocalist Anita O Day performance garnered 4-star reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Having been Artist in Residence in La Mue Normandy France, she has collaborated with acclaimed choreographer Karine Saporta in a new performance piece of jazz celtique. She is the creator and host of the award-winning radio series “Jazz on the Bay”, which won Music Specialist Programme of the Year at the Irish National Radio Awards, originally broadcast on RTE Radio 1, and is currently being broadcast monthly on the California jazz station KCSM.org. She is currently working with KCSM on the history of the station.
She has also been the recipient of a 2023 Creative Ireland award, with her Swing Jazz & Poetry project to Nursing Homes in Wexford, in collaboration with poet Stephen James Smyth, which was stated by the HSE as “one of the Highlights of 2023.” She achieved a Distinction and Student of the Year Award in her Masters MFA in Performance at the American College Dublin. She is a founding member of both the Wexford Normandy Cultural Association and the Jazz at Johnstown Festival, and has recently performed at the Wexford Arts Festival, Culture Night, Farmleigh House, Rosslare Harbour Festival, Aberjazz Festival, and Keys Jazz Club in San Francisco. She is a committed music educator and is on the part-time vocal faculty teaching singing at the County Wexford School of Music.
Address: Wexford town
Website: melanieoreilly.com