Melissa Angel Straus, Double Bass, currently performs with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra and the Grand Rapids Symphony, and other orchestras throughout Michigan. An avid recitalist, she has performed in faculty recitals at Central Michigan University, Alma College, and Lansing Community College as well as more contemporary venues such as LadyFest. In 2000 she was honored to perform in faculty recitals with Cleveland Orchestra bassoonist Barrick Stees. In 1999, Melissa was a concerto soloist in Muskegon and Ann Arbor for the MENC conference. She also regularly performs chamber music, and helps organize the Mackinac Island Community Foundation Summer Concert Series. Her international performances include Vienna, Austria and Mexicali, Mexico. She is currently working on a CD.
Melissa received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Michigan State University in 2003, where she studied with the highly respected Jack Budrow. Before coming to Michigan in 1999, Melissa was Principal Double Bass with the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, and a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin at Superior. While earning her Master of Music degree at the University of Minnesota in 1996, Melissa studied and eventually worked with the some of the world-renowned musicians of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Melissa’s love for teaching has its roots in her undergraduate work at Arizona State University, where she studied with Dr. Dan Swaim , one of the authors of the Suzuki method for Double Bass. “Dr. Swaim’s love for teaching was infectious, and taking pedagogy from him was truly inspiring and demystifying,” Melissa states.
She currently teaches at Alma College, as well as Hope College.
