Tree City Chamber Players enjoyed its inaugural 2018-2019 season with performances in Boise, ID, at the Esther Simplot Performing Arts Academy and at McCall Music Society’s Second Sunday Sounds at Six recital series in McCall, Idaho. Concerts featured diverse programming for flute, oboe, cello and piano.
The ensemble then performed a program of French masterworks called “French Favorites” in January and February of 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered the performing arts industry around the world. The 2020-2021 season proceeded with YouTube live-streamed recitals when live-streaming became our new way of presenting several recitals until it was safe again for live audiences to attend.
We are a proud recipient of the 2019 Boise City Department of Arts and History Grant, which funded commissions by Boise-based composers Eric Alexander, Jim Cockey, and Dave Earnest, for a program called “Celebrating Idaho!”. Delayed until June of 2022 due to the pandemic, we finally presented this program on our first tour of Southern Idaho, including appearances on the Argyros Concert Series in Ketchum, ID, Second Sunday Sounds at Six in McCall, ID, and at many other venues.
We are honored to have been awarded this grant twice since then, in 2024 and 2025, both for expanding our regular concert programming to include children’s concerts at all Boise City Library locations. Thanks to the Boise City Department of Arts and History, and the Boise Public Library System!
Tree City Chamber Players believes in supporting our community by giving 10% of donations collected at the door for each performance to a different Treasure Valley charity. We thank our generous audience members who have helped us to provide donations from our local performances to local non-profits, including but not limited to the United Way of Treasure Valley, the Idaho Foodbank, the Women’s and Children’s Alliance, the El-Ada Community Action Partnership, the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, the Idaho Conservation League, and many more. We are looking forward to supporting other local non-profits in the future. Thank you Treasure Valley community for helping us help others!
Melanie Keller, Flute
Melanie Schattschneider Keller, originally from Baltimore, MD, is Principal Flutist & Personnel Manager of the Vallejo Symphony Orchestra and the Opera Idaho Orchestra. She is also a member of the Boise Baroque Orchestra. From 2013-2020, she also served as Principal Flute and Orchestra Personnel Manager of Symphony Napa Valley. She has also performed as Principal Flutist with the Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Stockton and Solano Symphonies, the Benicia Ballet Orchestra, Symphony of the Redwoods, the Millennial Choirs & Orchestra and the Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra. In addition, Mrs. Keller enjoys performing regularly with the Boise Philharmonic and other orchestras throughout Northern California.
Mrs. Keller has spent recent summers performing with the Sun Valley Music Festival Orchestra (in 2025, she also served as Assistant Orchestra Personnel Manager for the Sun Valley Music Festival Orchestra), McCall Summerfest Orchestra, Festival Napa Valley, Mendocino Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Texas Music Festival and the Las Vegas Music Festival. From 1999-2002, Mrs. Keller enjoyed performing in some of the world’s greatest concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall and New York’s Avery Fisher Hall with the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra (conducted by Leon Botstein) and the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra (conducted by Kurt Masur, Yoav Talmi and Carlos Kalmar).
Mrs. Keller has been a featured soloist with the Vallejo Symphony Orchestra and the St. Peter’s Chamber Orchestra.
She was a founding member of The Avenue Winds, a Bay-Area based woodwind quintet that maintains a special interest in performing works by living Bay Area composers (www.avenuewinds.com) and is honored to be a co-founder of the Tree City Chamber Players!
A frequent prizewinner at national flute competitions, she won 1st Place in the 2005 Mid-Atlantic Flute Fair Young Artist Competition and has been a prizewinner in several other national competitions, including the 2006 Madison Flute Festival Young Artist Competition, the 2005 Flute Society of Kentucky Young Artist Competition, the 2003 Flute Festival Mid-South Young Artist Competition and the 2003 Orchestral Audition Masterclass Competition at the Las Vegas NFA Convention. Mrs. Keller has performed at NFA Conventions as both a Flute Masterclass Performer and a Convention Performer. She has also been honored to have been selected as a three-time semifinalist in the San Diego Flute Guild Artist Gold Competition.
She received her M.M. degree in the studio of Timothy Day at the San Francisco Conservatory and her B.M. degree in the studio of Mark Sparks at the Peabody Institute. Former teachers also include Laurie Sokoloff, Sara Nichols and Gail Cameron.
Her discography includes the soundtrack to Ballet Russes (Intrada Label), Fleeting Visions: Collaboration II (Beauport Classical) and Conversations: Keyboard and Chamber Music by John Bilotta and David Gaines (Navano Records.)
A passionate educator, Mrs. Keller serves as Adjunct Flute Faculty at the College of Idaho and is the flute instructor at the Dunkley School of Music. She has also taught applied flute lessons at Boise State University and has presented a flute masterclass at Northwest Nazarene University. Previously, she enjoyed teaching flute at several schools in the Bay Area including Bridgepoint Music (Menlo Park, CA), and the Myriad Music School (San Mateo. CA). Mrs. Keller has also enjoyed working with young musicians as a coach for the Boise Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, the Peninsula Youth Orchestra (CA) and at the Sun Valley Music Festival Summer Music Institute.
When not playing her flute, Mrs. Keller loves spending time with her husband Blaise and her sons, Owen & Jacob.
Ryan Klein, oboe
Ryan Klein, oboe and English horn, is from Verbank, New York. Ryan is the principal oboist of the Opera Idaho Orchestra, second oboe and solo English horn with the McCall Mountain Symphony, oboist and co-founder of Boise-based Tree City Chamber Players, and professor of oboe at Boise State University. His past orchestral positions have included principal oboe of the Hubbard Hall Opera Theater Orchestra, Great Falls Symphony (acting), Lake George Chamber Orchestra, McCall SummerFest Orchestra, and the Corvallis-OSU Symphony, as well as solo English horn with the Boise Philharmonic and Corvallis-OSU Symphony. Prior to moving to Idaho, Ryan was acting associate principal oboe of the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, Hawaii Opera Theater Orchestra, and Ballet Hawaii Orchestra. Ryan regularly performs with several ensembles in Idaho and throughout the Northwest and California, including the Boise Philharmonic, the Stockton Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Sun Valley Music Festival, and more. He also operates his oboe and English horn private teaching and reed making studio out of his home Boise.
Ryan has given solo and chamber music recitals across Idaho, California, New York, New England and Hawaii. His concerto soloist appearances have included works by J.S. Bach, Harold Farberman, Haydn, and R. Strauss. For the Cathedral of St. Andrew’s Noontime Concert Series (Honolulu) and The Lutheran Church of Honolulu’s music program, Ryan was soloist on oboe, oboe d’amore, and English horn for many of the sacred and secular works of J.S. Bach. He was also a member of Nat Osborn and the Free Radicals, a rock band that toured the Northeast US from 2006-2009.
Ryan’s off-season summers are spent fishing and hiking with his dog Jason, playing ice hockey, and traveling. He is a USA Hockey certified level three referee and linesman. Ryan holds degrees from Skidmore College, the Mannes School of Music, and a diploma from the Bard Conservatory of Music. His many teachers have included Elaine Douvas, Richard Dallessio, Nicholas Stovall, Alexandra Knoll, Arthur Sato, Gene Marie Green, Cheryl Bishkoff, and Bert Lucarelli.
Chad Spears, piano
Chad Spears, a native of Boise, ID, has performed across the US, with additional appearances in Canada and Mexico. A winner of numerous young artist competitions, he made his orchestral debut at the age of eighteen playing Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor with the Treasure Valley Youth Symphony. Since then he has been featured with the Washington-Idaho Symphony and the Coeur d’Alene Symphony as the soloist for Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with the Spokane Symphony for Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major and with the University of Idaho Orchestra performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Chad earned his Doctor of Music Degree in Piano Performance at Florida State University under the tutelage of Dr. Read Gainsford.
A highly sought-after collaborative pianist, Chad served as a collaborative pianist for the Summer 2024 New Voice Festival in Boise, ID. He had the opportunity to work with renowned voice teacher Andrea DelGiudice (New York City) and NYC-based composer Jake Landau, whose opera & Aeterna was performed. Previously, he served as the collaborative pianist for the Summer 2021 and Summer 2022 Narnia Festival International Vocal Arts Program in Narni, Italy, directed by Andrea DelGiudice. In Summer 2015, Chad was invited to perform at the Encuentro Internacional de Flauta y Piccolo at the Escuela Superior de Música y Danza in Monterrey, Mexico, where he played in several recitals with the festival’s students and faculty members. He has also been a guest artist in Toronto, Canada a number of times, performing with flutist Alheli Pimienta and collaborating with composer Adam Sherkin. Chad’s chamber music repertoire is extensive and covers a range of styles from the Bach flute and keyboard sonatas to César Franck’s Sonata for Violin and Piano and Olivier Messiaen’s Quatour pour la fin du Temps. He is a proponent of new music, having performed works by the Japanese-American composer Hiroya Miura, Ukrainian composer Oleg Bezborodko and Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, among others.
A passionate teacher, Chad is dedicated to inspiring the next generation of musicians. He has maintained active piano studios in Moscow, ID, and Tallahassee, FL and currently teaches privately in Boise, ID. Chad currently serves as an
adjunct instructor and freelance collaborative pianist for Boise State University’s Department of Music, teaching ear training and class piano. Chad is the pianist for the Boise-based group Tree City Chamber Players and collaborates with TRICA, Alley Repertory Theater, Gemma Arts, Opera Idaho, the Boise Philharmonic, and other Treasure Valley orchestras. In his spare time, Chad enjoys composing music for solo piano, spending time with friends and family, and supporting the Treasure Valley’s vibrant arts community!