Melanie Chilianis has an interest in both the performance and creation of contemporary sound. As a performer with re-sound she has recorded three CDs, including Terry Riley's In C as well as many new Australian works. Several of her live performances have been broadcast on ABC Classic FM. In 2001, she presented the first Australian performance of Thomas Reiner's Oblique (for solo flute) at the Federation Music Week: Contemporary Music of Australia and the Asia Pacific. As an improviser, Melanie has had airplay on Radio National, Triple J FM, SBS radio, RTR-FM (Perth) and 3PBS (Melbourne). She completed improvisation workshops with Jim Denley in Sydney in 1999 and with Tim O’Dwyer in 2001.

In 2001 she performed as electronic artist (laptop) as part of the Make It Up Club's Electrofest. In 2002 she completed a suite of web-based sound design pieces for an online magazine, sleepybrain.net. She authored the sound design for a video art piece that was released on a DVD compilation, NeoPoetry, as part of the Next Wave Festival, 2004. Melanie’s electroacoustic composition breath stain appears on re-sound’s recently released CD ephemeral densities. In August 2005, the Italian trio, Trio Altrove 1.3, performed her composition Kappa at the Iwaki Auditorium in a live ABC FM broadcast. Her article on drum’n’bass was published in Currency Press’ Australian Encyclopedia of Music and Dance.

Melanie has an honours degree in music performance from Monash University and a graduate diploma in education from the University of Melbourne.