Melissa Dunphy

Born in Australia and raised in an immigrant family, Melissa Dunphy herself immigrated to the United States in 2003 and has since become an award-winning and acclaimed composer specializing in vocal, political, and theatrical music. She first came to national attention in 2009 when her large-scale work the Gonzales Cantata was featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, National Review, Fox News, and on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, where host Rachel Maddow described it as “the coolest thing you’ve ever seen on this show.” Other notable works include the song cycle Tesla's Pigeon, which won first place in the NATS Art Song Composition Award, and choral work What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach? which won the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers Competition and has been performed around the country by ensembles including Chanticleer, Cantus, and the St. Louis Chamber Chorus, who recorded it for their album American Declarations (Regent Record

Dunphy is the recipient of a 2020 Opera America Discovery Grant for Alice Tierney, a new opera commissioned by Oberlin Conservatory premiered in January 2023 and mounted at Opera Columbus in April 2023. She has been composer-in-residence for the Immaculata Symphony Orchestra, Volti, and the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, and her commissions include works for the BBC Singers, VOCES8, Cantus, Mendelssohn Chorus, Seattle Pro Musica, Chor Leoni, La Caccina, Skylark, Experiments in Opera, and the Kennett Symphony. Dunphy is also a Barrymore Award-nominated theater composer and sound designer working with Philadelphia-area theatres, and is Director of Music Composition for the National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut.

Dunphy has a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.M. from West Chester University and is on faculty at Rutgers University. She is president of the board of directors for Wildflower Composers and serves on the board of Lyric Fest. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, Matt; the Dunphys are currently the owners and developers of the Hannah Callowhill Stage, a new performance venue in Old City Philadelphia which they hope to open in 2026, and co-hosts of the popular podcast The Boghouse about their adventures in Philadelphia colonial archaeology.
More information and works at www.melissadunphy.com