Melinda Spratlan
Melinda Kessler Spratlan, soprano, has had a long and successful career. A native of Indiana, she holds a BA from Earlham College and MMus, MMA and DMA degrees from Yale University. Professor Emerita at Mount Holyoke College, she taught singing there for 43 years before retiring in 2009. She retired from public performance that same year.
As an artist and as a teacher, Melinda was drawn to music of all periods, and she had an excellent reputation for her versatility and in intelligent and captivating performances of music from various stylistic periods. During her career she has sung Webern in Boston, Rachmaninoff in Montreal, Brahms at Tanglewood, Bach and George Crumb in New Haven, Berlioz at Penn State University, Mozart in New York City, Schubert and Wolf in Vienna, Austria. Melinda was also a frequent soloist in the Five College Area in Massachusetts.
She is married to composer and Amherst College Professor Emeritus Lewis Spratlan, and they have three grown children. After living in Amherst, Massachusetts for 50 years, they retired to Lumberton NJ in 2019 to be closer to their youngest son.