Melvyn Poore works as instrumentalist, composer and music educator. He learned the euphonium from the age of four: later came the piano and at the age of twelve, he opted for the tuba. He studied music at the University of Birmingham, turning down a job as an archeologist in favour of a career composing and performing contemporary music. He was Musical Director at Birmingham Arts Laboratory, where he organized concerts and led workshops. With Arts Lab Music he published scores by contemporary British composers. From 1979 to 1986 he performed with many different ensembles – Cambrian Brass Quintet, Barry Guys London Jazz Composers Orchestra, Georg Gräwes Grubenklangorchester, Wolfgang Fuchs’ King Übü Orchestrü, Radu Malfattis Ohrkiste, Contraband, the European Tuba Quartet, the English Tuba Consort and the English Gamelan Ensemble. He was composer in residence for six months in Lincoln, England. Since 1989, he has been concerned with electro-acoustic possibilities with the tuba. For three years (1989-1991) he was research assistant at Salford College of Technology. 1992-1994 he worked as guest artist in the Institut for Music and Acoustics at the Centre for Art and Media Technology (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany. 1993-1995 he was guest professor at the Royal College of Music, London. He was a founding member of the ensemble Zeitkratzer, appeared as soloist with orchestra (BBC Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, NDR Sinfonieorchester).

For the last twenty years, he has been an active member of the Ensemble Musikfabrik, based in Cologne, Germany. For many years he was sound-designer for Ensemble Musikfabrik and his most recent achievement has been learning and playing the adapted guitar as part of the ensemble’s re-creation of Harry Partch’s complete instrumentarium and performances of Partch’s music.

His current main projects are a book about the tuba, research into pedagogical materials and activities, and a retro-tuba with a second bell