Jeana Melilli is the Principal Flute of the Savannah Philharmonic, Third Flute/Piccolo for the Greenville Symphony, and Second Flute of the Coastal Symphony of Georgia. She is in demand as an extra musician and has appeared with the Atlanta Symphony, Atlanta Opera, Atlanta Ballet, Jacksonville Symphony, Charleston Symphony, West Virginia Symphony, and other orchestras throughout the southeast. The Savannah Philharmonic has featured her multiple times as a soloist, and she is in demand as a chamber musician. Jeana is also a Baroque flutist, and helped found Savannah Baroque and the Vista Ensemble.
Alongside her work as a performer, Jeana has kept a steady flute studio since 2002. Many of her students succeed at auditions for District, Region, and All-State bands and orchestras, youth orchestras, summer and collegiate programs. She is in demand as a clinician, providing lectures for students at Agnes Scott College, Georgia Southern University, Furman University, Valdosta State University, as well as local middle and high school band programs throughout the southeast. She received her MM in Flute Performance from Northwestern University where she studied with Walfrid Kujala, and she received her BM in Flute Performance from The Catholic University of America, where she studied with Carole Bean.
In 2024, Jeana earned her PhD in musicology from the University of Florida along with a certificate in Modern European Studies. Her dissertation, “Re-examining the Dismissed: Cecilia Macca and Nineteenth-Century Sicilian Sacred,” uncovers the sacred music of Macca (c. 1788-1841), the musical importance of her convent, Santa Chiara in Noto, Sicily, and the musical influence of the Neapolitan Compositional tradition, imported from her teacher, the composer Paolo Altieri. Her specialties include late Baroque and early classical performance practice, trio sonatas, European studies, gender studies, and Neapolitan and Sicilian music of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Jeana Melilli 