Cello and Chamber String
During her undergraduate years at the Hartt School of Music, Melissa studied with David Wells. While in attendance there, she received a full scholarship towards an Artist Diploma and performed with the Emerson String Quartet. She also performed with Jaime Laredo and Isaac Stern as a member of the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Melissa's achievements at the Hartt School were rewarded with a full scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Alan Stepansky. After completing her Master of Music Degree, she began performing professionally in many orchestras and chamber groups as well as solo performances throughout northeastern America and Russia.
Among the Orchestras she has performed in are Springfield Symphony (MA) where she sat Assistant Principal, New Haven Symphony, Hartford Symphony and Hudson Valley Philharmonic. Chamber music groups have included Prometheus, led by Eric Lewis, the Lumina String Quartet and Salon Concert Artists Ensemble of which Melissa is the founder. As a soloist, she performed Elgar's Cello Concerto with the Ridgefield Symphony in April 2010 and received this review: "I confess to a special love for the full-bodied tone quality and broad potential expressive range of the cello; and Ms. Westgate is an artist under whose fingers and bow those qualities are heard to full advantage. A very fine cellist indeed, equipped with both a sensitive musical sense and an impressive performance technique and control, she managed all of the score's musical filigree with an ease that wove it into a lyrical flow, and in extended song-like passages, as in the wonderful slow movement, she made her instrument sing with a control that defined the lyric line's emotional movement." (Courtenay Cauble, Ridgefield Press) Currently, Melissa is the Cello Instructor at the Western Connecticut State University, performs frequent solo and chamber music recitals and is the Principal Cellist with the Ridgefield Symphony.
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