Photo: Anthony Upton

Melanie Ragge has performed nationally and internationally as a recitalist, chamber musician and orchestral player in venues as far flung as Vancouver Island, Malta, & northern Sweden as well as UK venues such as St John’s Smith Square, the Royal Opera House and Wigmore Hall.

Originally a medical student at King’s College Cambridge, Melanie ultimately graduated with an MPhil in Musicology. She was subsequently awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship at the Royal College of Music where she studied piano with Phyllis Sellick, oboe with Michael Winfield, and contemporary oboe with Edwin Roxburgh.

Whilst at the RCM, Melanie formed a duo with pianist Ann Martin-Davis, with whom she commissioned a number of new works and made her first recording – Lutoslawski’s Epitaph (ASV), as part of a CD of his piano chamber music.  Melanie has since collaborated with a wide variety of international artists including the Dante & Schidlof string quartets, pianists Ann Martin-Davis, Michael Dussek, Susanna Stranders and Angela Hewitt, and baritone Gerald Finlay. As a founder member of one of the UK’s leading wind ensembles, the New London Chamber Ensemble, she has released several CD’s, including Nielson’s Wind & Piano Chamber Music.  In addition to performing and recording with the NLCE, performances over the last few years have included Crush Room recitals at the Royal Opera House with the Ellipsis Ensemble, the Martinu Oboe Concerto in Cambridge, and touring and recording Mahler’s 10th Symphony at Philharmonie Hall in Berlin with the International Mahler Orchestra.

Melanie regularly coaches and gives masterclasses; she has been a guest tutor for numerous projects, including Chamber Music International, the Aberystwyth Music Festival, Hamburg  Hochschule für Musik und Theater  and the Penderecki Musik Akademie.   She is an oboe Professor at the Royal Academy of Music, and teaches at the Purcell School of Music.  She has also been the Associate Director and woodwind tutor for the National Youth Chamber Orchestra of Great Britain since its inception.  Her scientific interest continues in the form of ongoing research into the use of Electromyography to help to reduce strain injuries in musical training.