Melina Schein

Melina Schein was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and grew up in New York City. She received her undergraduate training at The Juilliard School in classical voice and piano accompaniment. Prior to that, her vocal and performance study began at the age of nine at the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division with Professor Donald Read. She was a member of the New York City Opera Children’s Chorus and the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorale, debuting in Boito’s Mefistofele under the baton of Julius Rudel.  A vocal performance major at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art, Ms. Schein made her operatic debut as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro with LaGuardia’s Bel Aria Opera Company under the tutelage of Professor Anna Ext. She received a full academic scholarship to Columbia University, a tuition scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music, and the Lucrezia Bori Grant for operatic and interpretive study and performance at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A versatile high-lyric coloratura, Ms. Schein participated in a four-year Bachelor Degree program at the Juilliard School where she trained under Beverley Peck-Johnson and Cynthia Hoffmann, and appeared as a soloist in the Alice Tully Hall opera concert series, the Juilliard Opera Center and the Maxwell von Gluck Fellowship, studying and performing the roles of Belinda in Dido and Aeneus, Celidora in L’Oca del Cairo, Despina in Cosi Fan Tutte, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, Adele in Die Fledermaus, Oscar in Un Ballo in Maschera and Nanetta in Falstaff. With the Mannes College of Music, she performed the role of Zerlina in Don Giovanni, and Papagena in The Magic Flute with the Teatro Colón Young Artist Program in Argentina. 

With a passion for musical theatre and crossover repertoire, Broadway and off-Broadway productions in which Ms. Schein has appeared as a principal artist include Good News, Showboat, The Apple Tree, Fiddler on the Roof, Guys & Dolls, My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Annie Get Your Gun, Beauty and the Beast, Carousel, Candide and The Sound of Music. Concert/oratorio work in Canada has included The Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, Gretel in Hansel & Gretel, and Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, all with the Okanagan Vocal Arts Festival, The Faure Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Schubert Mass in B Minor, John Rutter’s Requiem and Carmina Burana, with the Prince George, Kamloops and Kelowna Symphonies. She has performed with the Burnaby Symphony, the Kelowna Canada Day Symphony Orchestra, the Prince George Symphony, Symphony of the Kootenays, the Kamloops Symphony and the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra, and has been a featured artist on CBC Radio Two.

Ms. Schein has produced and starred in multiple national touring productions, including The Phantom Returns with musical theatre legend Peter Karrie (London’s famed Phantom of the Opera), The Dharma Dolls - an eclectic trio of jazz, musical theatre and original compositions, Opera with a Twist and a Kiss - an original production bringing opera to the masses across Western Canada, and Soprano on the Loose - featuring the beloved standards of the Golden Era of Hollywood.

Raised in the Jewish faith, Ms. Schein has been a guest cantorial soloist for Temple Beth Shalom in Manhattan and The Okanagan Jewish Community Centre in Kelowna, BC. From 2010-2016, Ms. Schein was the artist-in-residence and headline performer at Swarovski’s famed Sparkling Hill Resort, performing her original concert series, Soprano on the Hill, to Canadian, American and European audiences. 

Currently, Ms. Schein is touring as the soprano soloist in Music of the Night, a tribute to 75 years of music by the great Andrew Lloyd Webber, produced by Sound the Alarm Music/Theatre, a Vancouver-based company. The production has been touring across Canada since 2019 and will be moving on to international stages in 2024. 

As producer, director, vocal instructor and accompanist, Ms. Schein is the founder and artistic director of Valley Vocal Arts Studio and Big Apple Productions, both in Vernon, British Columbia. Teaching, coaching and directing aspiring performers of all ages, she remains committed to bringing the best of live theatre and showcasing local talent to Okanagan audiences. Past productions include Les Miserables, The Producers, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Rocky Horror Show, Honk! The Musical, The Sound of Music, Beauty & the Beast, Chicago, Fiddler on the Roof, Monty Python’s SPAMALOT, The Pirates of Penzance, and Cabaret.

Ms. Schein is the creator of The Saucy Soprano, a pandemic-inspired project to keep her creative juices flowing. The project attracted the attention of The Food Network, where she went on to compete in and win Season 1, Episode 1 of Wall of Bakers. Her subsequent blog and podcast garnered close to 20,000 listeners and followers on social media.