Melina Coolen

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Melina Coolen is a Canadian musician, songwriter, producer and audio engineer. Her retropop influence is undeniable in her carefully self-produced sound and sophisticated songwriting style. After years of formal classical training and receiving the RCM Silver Medal in piano, she pursued her love for pop and jazz songwriting in college and university. Paying homage to the Brill Building greats, Melina researched production and recording techniques of the past while studying at Ryerson University. There, she released her debut EP, All of My Life, in 2017 in conjunction with her masters thesis on analog and digital recording hybrids.

Melina’s versatility in the music industry led to her composing background musical themes for The Bluenose Legacy (2011) and Borderline (2017); being selected for the prestigious Screen Composers Guild of Canada’s (SCGC) Apprentice Mentor Program; contributing supportive research for the SCGC subgroup Women Composer’s Advisory Council’s study, Gender In The Film Composing Industry; interning in music supervision for animation; contributing audio post-production to a variety of productions such as television, podcasts, ads, film and video games; and more recently being named part of the 2023 cohort of the Academy of Canadian Television & Cinema’s Women In Post program (presented by Netflix).

Melina’s second EP, Windows, was released in February 2021. The album was inspired by a wide range of genres including retro pop, soul, folk, jazz and prog, and features vocalists Jade Bennett and Sarah Frank (The Bombadils). Soon after its release, Fairytales Again (feat. Jade Bennett) quickly went from Producer’s Pick to being voted among the top 5 on the East Coast Countdown’s Top 10 Chart. Tying a bow on a successful release, Melina was nominated for Best Songwriter in The Coast’s Best of Halifax 2022. In 2023, She released another retropop bubblegum original, Nothing At All (feat. Linda Vilela), which was her first song to feature international talent. Melina is currently awaiting her next single to drop in January 2024, Behind Every Cloud. It draws inspiration from chamber pop and orchestral hip hop and is the first piece she is releasing in her instrumental series.

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