Matthew Melillo joined The Florida Orchestra as its contrabassoonist in 2023. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in bassoon performance from Northwestern University, where he studied with David McGill. He has performed in Switzerland and Germany as a member of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, and in Colorado with the National Repertory Orchestra.

Matthew grew up in New Jersey and has been playing in orchestras since the age of 11. He credits much of his early musical growth to the New Jersey Youth Symphony, Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and Juilliard Precollege, studying under Marc Goldberg.

While studying at Northwestern, he specialized in the contrabassoon, and it quickly became a passion. He is an early adopter of the Kronwalt, a largely redesigned contrabassoon and the result of a collaboration between German instrument makers Guntram Wolf and Rudolf Walter. Matthew is committed to bassoon and contrabassoon pedagogy and enjoys sharing his knowledge of both instruments.

Somewhat of a multi-instrumentalist, Matthew also plays the piano, harpsichord and accordion, and was featured as an accordion soloist with the National Repertory Orchestra in 2023. Always looking to learn new skills, his dream instruments include the Hurdy-Gurdy, Theorbo and Heckelphone. When not making music or reeds, Matthew enjoys cooking, breadmaking, sewing, leatherworking, painting miniatures, and 3D printing/modeling.