Born in 1941 in Whitehall, Wisconsin, John Melby was brought up in Pulaski, Tennessee, where he began his musical studies as a trombonist/violinist/violist while still a child. He attended the Curtis Institute of Music, from which he earned the Diploma (1964) and B.Mus. (1966); the University of Pennsylvania (M.A. in composition, 1967), where he studied composition with Henry Weinberg and George Crumb; and the Music Department of Princeton University (M.F.A., 1971; Ph.D.,1972--both in composition); his composition teachers there were Peter Westergaard, J. K. Randall, and Milton Babbitt. He taught from 1971 until 1973 at West Chester State College (now West Chester University) in Pennsylvania. In 1973 he was appointed to the Composition/Theory faculty in the School of Music of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was Professor of Music until his retirement in August of 1997 and where he now holds the title of Professor Emeritus.

He is best known for his music written for computer-synthesized tape, either in combination with live performers or for tape alone, and is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the field of computer music, having begun his work in this area in the 1960s while a graduate student at Princeton University. In recent years he has concentrated upon the composition of large orchestral works, but he has just resumed his work in composition for computer-synthesized sounds after a hiatus of several years. His Symphony No. 1 (1993) was given its premiere performance at the University of Illinois in March of 1994 by the University of Illinois Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Paul Martin Zonn.

Melby's compositions have won numerous awards and have been widely performed both in the United States and abroad. He was the recipient of an NEA Fellowship in 1977, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1983, an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1984, and an associateship in the University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study in 1989-90. His awards include several at the International Electroacoustic Music Awards (Bourges, France), where he received First Prize in 1979 for his "Chor der Steine" for computer-synthesized tape.

In recent years, he has composed a series of concerti for various instruments and tape, including two violin concerti, two flute concerti, two violoncello concerti, two piano concerti, two clarinet concerti, and concerti for viola, contrabass, and English horn, as well as a double concerto for violin and English horn with tape and a concerto for tape and orchestra in which (reversing the usual situation) the tape is the soloist instead of the accompaniment. He has also composed for the voice, his "Two Stevens Songs" , one of several works incorporating poems by Wallace Stevens, and his "Three Wordsworth Songs" being among his most frequently performed compositions.

Other compositions in his catalog include two piano sonatas, three string quartets (the most recent of which includes tape), songs for voice and piano, pieces for larger ensembles, both with and without computer, numerous compositions for computer alone, an unpublished opera, two symphonies, and a large work for lyric baritone, chorus (SATB) and large orchestra based upon William Cullen Bryant's poem "Thanatopsis".

His music is published by Associated Music Publishers, Shawnee Press, and Merion Music, Inc. (Theodore Presser Co.), and recorded on the CRI, Advance, New World, Centaur, and Zuma labels, and on a CD recently issued by the Institute International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges / IMEB in Bourges, France.

John Melby is a member of Broadcast Music, Inc., American Music Center, and American Composers Alliance. His biography is included in Who's Who in America.

Charles Melby-Thompson

Charles Melby-Thompson, John Melby's younger son, was born in 1983 in Champaign, Illinois. Winner of several awards for academic excellence during his high-school years at University Laboratory High School in Urbana, Illinois, Charles also is an accomplished cellist (he was a member of the cello section of the Honors Orchestra of the Illinois All-State Orchestra during his senior year) and pianist, as well as a highly-skilled computer programmer. In his capacity as programmer, he has worked for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Theodore Presser Company, SAIC, and Princeton University.

Examples of his programming expertise can be found at the Web site of SloppyDisk Software, a game-programming company founded by Charles and two of his friends, Mark Johns and Justin Lee. Following is a quotation dated August 10, 2000 from the SloppyDisk Web site with information about their work:

SloppyDisk has been getting a little attention in the press lately. Our local newspaper wrote a piece on Justin and Mark winning the student prize at this year's MacHack. News of this also appeared in the September issue of MacAddict magazine. And. as if that wasn't enough, PongWars will be making an appearance on the MacAddict cd-rom in an upcoming issue. Keep your eyes peeled!

Charles graduated magna cum laude in 2005 from Princeton University and concentrates in the area of theoretical physics. During his freshman year at Princeton, he was awarded the Eugene Taylor Prize for excellence in sophomore physics. In addition to graduating with high honors, he was selected to receive the Kusaka Memorial Prize in Physics for excellence in independent research. In 2006, he was awarded a Master's degree with distinction in Mathematics from Oxford University in England. At present, Charles is a Ph.D. candidate in Physics at the University of California—Berkeley.