Melissa Bull, violin, grew up in Pennsylvania, where she started playing piano at the age of three and the violin at the age of five. At age eleven, she won her first professional orchestra position and her love for orchestra has only grown since then.
She was an active free-lancer in the Boston area for two decades, where she appeared as concerto soloist six times with three Massachusetts orchestras and once in Buenos Aires, Argentina in a televised performance. Melissa appeared regularly as concertmaster or principal violist for a dozen regional orchestras across New England and held contracts with seven different orchestras.
She was the Assistant Orchestra Conductor at Gordon College, where she taught private violin lessons and group scales class to music majors, conducted orchestra sectionals, and coached chamber music. Melissa was the founder and coordinator of Accord Chamber Players, which played hundreds of special events and recorded thousands of new student compositions at Berklee College of Music, as well as the John Lithgow book, “Never Play Music Right Next to the Zoo.” She also co-founded North Shore Chamber Music, which presented four successful concert seasons of chamber music featuring strings.
Since moving to Kentucky in 2017, she has performed with the Nashville Symphony, Nashville Opera, Gateway Chamber Orchestra, Evansville Philharmonic, and Paducah Symphony Orchestra. She has appeared as concertmaster of Orchestra Kentucky and assistant concertmaster of Owensboro Symphony. She has recorded frequently with Nashville Music Scoring, working on major film scores, tv episodes, and video game soundtracks.
Melissa studied with James Buswell at New England Conservatory and Gordon College, receiving a BM in Violin Performance and a BA in Spanish with Departmental Honors. She completed her Master of Music summa cum laude in violin performance at Boston Conservatory as a student of Lynn Chang and Joseph Silverstein, the former concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Melissa now lives in Bowling Green with her husband, two tween daughters, and their two perfect cats, and she is the Minister of Music & Discipleship at Christ Methodist Church. She enjoys collaborating as accompanist for Western Kentucky University music students and is currently studying at Wesley Biblical Seminary. She adores the Owensboro community and loves playing with the Symphony!