About the artist
Award-winning organist and choirmaster
Melissa Dermastia was born in Maria Saal, Carinthia. She is the choirmaster at Graz Cathedral, teaches organ at the Vienna University of Music and is the artistic director of the Carinthian Madrigal Choir in Klagenfurt.
She received her first piano and organ lessons at the Carinthian State Conservatory. At the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, she completed her Masters and Diploma studies in Church Music (specialising in choral and ensemble conducting and early ensemble music), concert organ, instrumental pedagogy organ and instrumental pedagogy piano, all with distinction. Her teachers included Erwin Ortner and Ingrun Fussenegger (choral and ensemble conducting), Peter Planyavsky (organ), Michael Lipp (piano) and Birgid Steinberger (singing). A period abroad took her to Paris, where she studied organ with Olivier Latry and Michel Bouvard.
She has won prizes at national and international organ competitions and was awarded the Appreciation Prize of the Vienna University of Music and the Erwin Ortner Prize for the Promotion of Choral Music in 2022.
She gives organ recitals at home and abroad. From 2016 to 2022 she is Assistant Cathedral Musician at the Klagenfurt Cathedral and from 2020 to 2021 Lecturer for Piano at the Vienna University of Music.
