Melissa Rooklidge

Choral Studies, Music Makers and Adult Musicianship Sight-Singing (Kodály methodology)

Ms. Rooklidge is a choir director and musicianship teacher, guest clinician, and program manager for a variety of choral and music programs. At the Opus Ithaca School of Music, Ms. Rooklidge founded and directs the Odyssey Choir (4 ensembles, youth through adults), as well as Adult Musicianship Sight-Singing classes. She founded and taught the Opus Music Makers classes (Kodály musicianship for ages 5-7) from 2018-2025 and now serves as the program manager for these classes (currently taught by Morgan Haaf). Additionally, she is the director and coordinator for summer youth singing camps at Opus Ithaca.

Ms. Rooklidge enjoyed serving as the visiting professor and director of the Treble Chorale at Ithaca College in fall 2024. From 2021-2023, she also served on faculty at the Ithaca Waldorf School where she taught general music classes and choir (grades 1-8). She served as the Interim Artistic Director of the Cayuga Vocal Ensemble for fall 2019. Ms. Rooklidge previously held the position of Assistant Music Director and Director of Operations for GMChorale in Middletown, Connecticut, from 2017-2019. She served as the Founding Artistic Director of the Waterbury Youth Chorus from 2011-2016, and as the Yale Camerata Chorus Manager and Concert Production Assistant at Yale University from 2012-2015. Additionally, Ms. Rooklidge taught choirs, general music, and voice throughout Connecticut in public and private schools, and community and church organizations from 2011-2017.

As a guest clinician, she serves as a guest conductor at various schools and honor choirs in upstate New York, as well as regularly presents sessions at Ithaca College. She also taught in her second language of Italian as the visiting music instructor at Istituto Comprensivo Ildovaldo Ridolfi in Tuscania, Italy. She sang with Alchemy, a professional vocal chamber ensemble based in Connecticut from 2016-2019, and she has had the honor of singing in choruses in prominent venues such as Carnegie Hall. Ms. Rooklidge studied conducting with Drs. André Thomas and Kevin Fenton at Florida State University, where she earned a Master of Music Education degree. She also holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree with a Concentration in Voice from Texas Tech University, mentored by acclaimed composer, conductor, author, and Kodály teacher, Dr. Susan Brumfield.

Melissa was featured in our Opus Ithaca Faculty Spotlight in Fall, 2021!