Groupmuse for Hire

Melanie Chirignan is a flautist known for her musicality and versatility of repertoire. Her eclectic tastes have led Melanie to collaborate with many different performers and ensembles. As an orchestral player, she has performed with: New York Chamber Players Orchestra, Albany Pro Musica, Octavo Chamber Orchestra, Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra, Garden State Philharmonic, the Chelsea Symphony, Gateway Classical Music Society, S.E.M. Ensemble, and Hartt Independent Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician, Melanie has performed with Quintocracy, Stringwynde, jazz bass legend, Nat Reeves, traditional Irish harpist Hailey Hewitt, Philadelphia Fife and Drum Corps, guitarist Oren Fader, and the Alturas Duo. She has performed at Alice Tully Hall, Symphony Space, Opera America, the DiMenna Center, Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Tenri Cultural Center, for Composer's Voice Concert Series, Cornelia St. Cafe, the Connecticut Guitar Society, at many public library concert series’ including Troy, the Windsor Historical Society, the New Britain Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Windsor Art Center, and the Wadsworth Museum of Art, Proctors, among others. As a soloist, Melanie has been featured with the Chelsea Symphony, performing "Poem" by Charles Griffes.
Melanie believes strongly in being innovative and collaborative with music and has worked closely with many composers and has premiered new works including: Alex Ford's "Berus in the Woods" in collaboration with Electric City Puppets (thanks to a grant from the Schenectady Community Arts Council), Ralph Raymond Hays music to the story "Keller's Heart" by John Gray and illustrated by Shanon Obelenus, used by permission of paraclete press (thanks to a grant from the Schenectady Community Arts Council), Nolan Stolz (Princess Ka'iulani, released on SCI/ Parma Recordings), Masatora Goya, Sean Pallatroni, Kary Contreras Galindo, and made the world premiere recording of the Delian Suite, from a body of international composers in the Delian Society. She has recorded several works for Masatora Goya's album, Dream Of Sailing, available on ITunes and Amazon. She also recorded "Latinos Ni de Aqui Ni de Alla" on the Latin Heartbeat Orchestra album, El Regreso. She is currently recording an album of flute and guitar music by all women composers with guitarist Scott Hill. She is about to premier music to the silent film Nosferatu by Sina Kiai (thanks to the Saratoga Community Arts Grant). In December, Quintocracy will present the music of Women Composer's on the Lift Series at TSBMH thanks to a New York Women Composer's Seed Money Grant.
Originally from Hauppauge, NY, Melanie Chirignan earned her bachelor’s in Music Performance and Music Education graduating magna cum laude from SUNY Fredonia and her master’s degree in Flute Performance at the Hartt School. She has taught general music, chorus, and orchestra, and has taught every level from elementary school to conservatory level students and was adjunct faculty at the College of Saint Rose. With Alturas Duo, Melanie has taught workshops on the "Origins of South American Folk Music" through Hartford Performs. She is currently freelancing and teaching privately. Members of Quintocracy are artists in residence at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. Quintocracy offers workshops for schools through BOCES.

Pianist Ian Scarfe enjoys a busy career as an advocate for music. He manages a busy performance calendar that includes solo, ensemble, and orchestra appearances, which take him across the United States and Europe. An entertaining and articulate speaker, Scarfe finds himself equally at home in formal concert venues, halls of higher education, and casual events such as house concerts and jazz clubs.
Scarfe is the founder and director of the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival, an adventure-based touring festival that has brought musicians from all over the world to scenic rural Northern California. Since 2011 the festival has presented over 500 public concerts free and open to the public, with a special focus on rural communities and unexpected outdoor venues in scenic wilderness areas.
Scarfe makes his home in the Presidio of San Francisco with his wife and two cats. His sports career was short but spectacular - he enjoyed a position as the starting pianist of the San Francisco 49ers, performing in the stadium club restaurant in Candlestick Park from 2010 until the stadium was demolished a few years later.

Equally at home composing for orchestra, playing Bach at the piano, or crossing over into pop, Sam Post is forging a career across styles and between genres. The Washington Post has praised his abilities at the piano ("confident, sensitive...a pianist with drive and intelligence"), the Bay Area Reporter lauded his chamber symphony ("Post has created a breathtaking musical joy ride"), and luminaries such as Renée Fleming have commended his overall musicianship (“incredibly gifted”).
In 2016 Sam subbed as an accompanist to Yo-Yo Ma and Renee Fleming at the Kennedy Center. After hearing Sam play one of his own compositions in their rehearsal, Ma promptly recommended him to Michael Tilson Thomas at the San Francisco Symphony for a string quartet commission on Kazakh folk themes by late dombra player Karshyga Akhmedyarov, whose daughter Raushan plays in the symphony. After the premiere of the resulting “Sketches from Kazakhstan,” the Symphony again commissioned him to turn it into a chamber symphony for their SoundBox concert series in December 2017. Baltimore Chamber Orchestra gave the East Coast premiere in February 2022.
Sam has composed hundreds of pieces for solo piano and various chamber configurations. He is the only five-time prizewinner in the history of the Fidelio Composition Competition for piano, out of more than 1000 participants from over 30 countries. He won the 2021 and 2022 World Championship Old-Time Piano "New Rag" Competitions with Lighthouse Rag and Angels' Watch Rag-Waltz. Sam’s 2017 solo album “Dizzy Days” made W. Royal Stokes’ notable jazz releases that year, and was featured on the cover of the Syncopated Times. Sam is the recipient of multiple Levine faculty grants, an Emergent Seed grant, commissions from the San Francisco Symphony and Palisades Virtuosi. He won the 2014 Wonderlic Piano Competition, the 2017 and 2018 Misbin Memorial Chamber Music Competitions, and Honorable Mention at the 2013 Heida Hermanns International Competition, in all cases playing his own original compositions. He is a founding member of Kassia Music, ensemble-in-residence at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Bethesda, Maryland, is on the faculty at Levine Music in the DC area, and is a proud musician-owner and council member at Groupmuse. Find him at sampostpiano.com.

Cellist James Jaffe has a special love for chamber music. He has performed at the Robert Mann String Quartet Institute in Manhattan, in Switzerland and France on concert tours, at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music, at dive bars in Canada, on top of Aspen Mountain, and once for stranded traffic during a January mudslide on Highway 299. His chamber music performances have been streamed live from the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and broadcast on Cleveland’s WCLV 104.9, Virginia’s WVTF 89.1, and San Francisco’s KDFC 90.3. He has also performed over 120 Groupmuses to date, including a sold-out performance of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden at San Francisco’s first Massivemuse.

Recognizing the immediate need for musical connections during the pandemic, James participated in quarantine-era projects with many longtime friends and collaborators: livestreams with the Sierra Quartet, violinist Mélanie Clapiès, and visual artist Peggy Gyulai; hybrid events with Classical Revolution and the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival; live outdoor performances with Concerts in the Park; and new video projects with One Found Sound.

Aside from his role as performer, James serves as Artistic Director of Festival Rolland, a summer chamber music festival in Burgundy, France. He has also taught chamber music at the Northern Lights Chamber Music Institute, the Crowden School, and Baldwin Wallace University.

James spent summers studying at the Aspen Music Festival, Music@Menlo, and the Banff Centre. His chamber music mentors include members of the Juilliard, Cleveland, Takács, Tokyo, Vermeer, Emerson, Brentano, and Kronos quartets.