Department of Music

American violinist Melissa White, professor of music, performs as a soloist and as a chamber musician. A first-prize laureate in the Sphinx Competition, White is a highly accomplished performer who has expanded the repertoire of 20^th- and 21^st-century classical music by including marginalized traditions and composers. She is a founding member of New York-based Harlem Quartet, through which she has worked with classical-music luminaries and appeared in many prestigious national venues, including Carnegie Hall, the White House, and the Kennedy Center. In 2024, White and her Harlem Quartet colleagues and collaborators in New York-based quintet Imani Winds won a Grammy for “Passion for Bach and Coltrane,” a work arranged and composed by Jeffrey Scott who joined UB as a professor of music in 2024.