Marc Mellits

Composer Marc Mellits incorporates popular influences into minimalist and post-minimalist techniques, sometimes writing for an electric guitar or other electronic instruments. He is the artistic director and keyboardist of his ensemble, the Mellits Consort. Many of his works in the 1990s were for chamber ensembles. Beginning with Aggravated Assault for two amplified pianos (1991), they often included electronic elements, and their rock influences have attracted crossover audiences. Mellits founded the Common Sense Composers Collective, which issued the album The Shock of the Old in 2001. In 2006, the composer and his Mellits Consort issued Paranoid Cheese, a collection of 11 chamber works by Mellits. In 2019, a movement of his String Quartet No. 3 was heard on the album Spark by the Friction Quartet.