Emily Melgr credits her father for her special gift – the gift of music. She remembers her family following her father when his career as a musician and conductor took him all over the country.”My dad has done music forever and this I’m realizing is a huge part of who I am,” Melgr said. “He has known since he was 12 what he has wanted to do – and it was play the piano and conduct orchestras.”Melgr was born in Provo, Utah, where her parents were students at Brigham Young University. “At the beginning of my life, we followed my dad’s career in music so after he finished at BYU we moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he continued to work on his music,” Melgr said. When she was 4 years old, Melgr and her family moved to Kansas City, Mo., where her father attended the University of Missouri Kansas City for his doctorate.As she entered grade school, Melgr’s love for music continued in the classroom. “I went to Cordell Elementary and Mrs. Abernathy was my teacher,” she said. “She had these posters of instruments in class that I loved, and I remember exactly what they looked like … I thought those were the coolest things in the world.” Melgr said she remembers sitting in the classroom and being “so absorbed in music” as her teacher played selections by Aaron Copland.She was blessed to grow up with a grand piano in her house. Around the age of 10, Melgr said she listened to a musical score from Dvor·k’s 9th Symphony and followed the notes on the sheet music. “I didn’t know it then, but I know it now what I was training my brain to do,” she said.By the fifth grade, Melgr took violin lessons and also learned to play piano. In junior high and high school, she participated in choir and orchestra. After high school graduation, Melgr followed in her parents footsteps and attended Brigham Young University.It was in her last year of college while taking a Greek language course that she met her husband, Jaroslav. “I had wanted to take Greek because I’m half Greek. My father’s Greek,” she said. The two shared a love for languages and were married May 17, 1995.Melgr graduated with a bachelor of science in linguistics in 1996. On Feb. 14 of the following year, the couple received a special Valentine – their first child. Eighteen months later, they had a second child. When Jaroslav graduated in 2001, Melgr was pregnant with their third child, and the family moved to Arkansas.While most Coloradoans seek the view of the mountains, Melgr said she would rather look at the prairie. When they moved from Arkansas to Falcon in 2002, it was a perfect fit. “I’m a prairie girl. I always have been,” she said. “I lived and breathed the prairie.”After her fourth child was born in 2004, Melgr felt the urge to combine motherhood and music and opened Falcon Music Studios, where she offered piano and violin lessons to kids in Falcon. “I had always done music in church and taught my kids,” she said.Shortly after she started teaching, Melgr noticed that some of her younger students were struggling with their lessons. Melgr had an idea she thought might help them when she remembered how a Kindermusik class helped her son. “I remember I was really impressed with it and in the back of my mind I thought I could teach Kindermusik,” Melgr said. “It would do something for all these piano students, and, if they could benefit from a semester or two of Kindermusik what a foundation that would lay and make piano lessons so much easier.”After completing Kindermusik University courses, Melgr began teaching the classes to her students. As the only licensed Kindermusik teacher in Falcon, Melgr said she dreams of continuing her support of the music programs offered in D49 and one day possibly serving as a focal point for music throughout the community. “I want to connect the music and the arts community out here,” she said. “I don’t want there to be just so-so stuff but really good stuff.”Music is what I love in my life – you can ask my kids.”More on Emily MelgrWhat do you love about Falcon?The open space. Most people say “the view.” They like looking at the mountains. To me, the best thing about living out here is the other view – the prairie.What is your favorite piece of music?I don’t like Bach more than Beethoven more than Brahms. I love Dvorak’s 9th Symphony, especially the fourth movement. It is called the New World Symphony. That is the one I know the most. I picture all the music in my mind.Name someone you admire.Marjorie Pay Hinckley. I am a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints and she is the wife of one of our prophets, who just recently passed away. She is 100 percent the kind of lady I want to be. One hundred percent graceful, respectful, cultured, refined, and she and her husband had a marriage like nobody else. Other than music, what are some of your hobbies?Reading. I like history and historical fiction. I lived, breathed and read the American West, and I could do that my entire life. Annie Oakley, Frank James, Little House on the Prairie. Lewis and Clark: I think why I love it – no boundaries.
