Melanie Gall is an internationally-acclaimed vocalist.  She has traveled to Africa, South America and the Caribbean to perform solo classical recitals and to sing at events for the Semaine de la Francophonie, and she is a regular performer at the American Spring Festival in the Czech Republic.  Melanie’s opera roles have included Gilda, La Fée, The Queen of the Night and Lima Energelly in the North American premiere of the Hebrew Opera ‘And the Rat Laughs’.  She is based in Alberta Canada, and has sung at both Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.

 

“Sweet and nostalgic, she’s like a Disney princess from the Lower East Side”. (Uptown Magazine)

 

Melanie has completed several advanced music degrees: University of Alberta, University of Western Ontario, Glenn Gould School of Music, the Mozarteum in Salzberg, and Brooklyn College and Manhattan School of Music in New York, as well as training programs with singers and coaches from the Metropolitan Opera in Italy and Israel.
 

She has written and internationally toured several award-winning solo shows.  These include: ‘My Pal Izzy’, based on the early life of Irving Berlin, ‘The Sparrow and The Mouse’ and ‘Piaf and Brel: The Impossible Concert’, about French chanteuse Edith Piaf, ‘In the Mood for Love’, with songs from ‘American Songbook’ women composers, ‘Opera Mouse’, a children’s introduction to opera, ‘Red Hot Mama: A Sophie Tucker Cabaret’ (written by Erik DeWaal), and two shows: ‘More Power to Your Knitting, Nell!’ and ‘A Stitch in Time’, featuring ‘lost’ knitting music from WWI and WWII.

 

“Gall can be captivating.  Her musical capabilities could sell out venues alone, and her acting skills puts her on the stage with many other great talents.” (Production Ottawa)

 

She has won several awards for her work, including the ‘CBC Award for Best Musical’ at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, ‘Best of Fest’ in Saskatoon, as well as the Orlando Fringe ‘Audience Choice’ Award and the ‘Most Outstanding Female Performer’ award at the London Fringe.  Melanie has also received awards in several international voice competitions, including the Sembrich Voice Competition and the Strauss Society Competition, and she received an Honourable Mention in the prestigious Metropolitan Opera National Council Awards. 

“Gall's voice is the star of the show, soaring through familiar and new tunes for an audience that was smiling from start to finish.” (CBC Winnipeg)

 

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Melanie has recorded several albums, including Knitting all the Day, a CD containing WWI-era knitting music, and the recently-released Sweeter in a Sweater, with songs about knitting from WWII.  Other recordings include Piaf and Brel: The Impossible Concert (music of Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel), Min HaLev (Hebrew and Ladino melodies) and La Nuit en Rose (songs from the cabarets of France).

 

“Gall is vivacious, and her lovely voice has real power.”  (Edmonton Journal)

 

In 2013-2016, Melanie toured several countries that were under-represented theatrically (Zimbabwe, Algeria, Morocco, Zambia), where she both performed (in English and French), and led outreach programs for children and young artists in local schools and orphanages.  In addition, Melanie has worked with many First-Nations Communities  in Northern Manitoba, fostering a love of music and building performance skills in youth. 

 

“Gall’s gorgeous voice wraps around you like a cozy afghan.” (Saskatoon StarPhoenix)

 

Melanie is the leading expert in historic songs about knitting and spinning.  She has collected, researched and recorded several dozen of these songs, and has lectured about this music in the colloquium series at New York University, as well as at conferences in Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and New York, and at the National Museum in Luxembourg.  In addition, Melanie hosts The Savvy Girls Podcast, an extremely popular knitting podcast with a regular listenership of several thousand.