MELISSA BRETHAUER
Singer/songwriter
Guitar & piano
Melissa Brethauer (pronounced BRETT-how-er) released her debut CD, “Waiting,” at the end of October 2009 and has been writing more new songs since - not to mention performing them in the likes of Nashville and Las Vegas! (She is currently planning her second CD.)
The 23-year old singer/songwriter plays guitar and (is classically trained on) piano and the buzz around her has grown since “Waiting” came out. Just after the CD’s release, *TBT (Tampa Bay Times) featured Melissa as their Artist of the Day. And, the title track was among the top 50 in MusicTampaBay.com’s Top 100 Songs of 2009.
The CD is available on CDbaby.com, iTunes, Amazon.com, Rhapsody, Spotify, and through several other streaming sources and online retailers as well as, of course, at her live shows. Although Melissa is based in the southeast, “Waiting” has been purchased by listeners as far away as Florida, New York, Texas, California, and even Hawaii and Japan. Plus, digital download activity has been reported from iTunes Europe!
At the end of August 2010 Melissa appeared on national TV (interview and performance) and then a monthly magazine published a full-page feature on her in September (see page 12). She was in the media for a third straight month when in October she appeared on a morning show on the CBS affiliate in Tampa, Florida, doing two of her original songs around an interview. The streak continued when she appeared on "Orlando Live" in November.
Furthermore, three music websites have published positive reviews of “Waiting,” all of which can be read via the links on the IN THE MEDIA page.
Melissa has performed all around Florida, including, but not limited to, Daytona Beach, Orlando, Tampa, and Fort Myers. Plus she has appeared at two big events that have taken her northwest and into the company of some highly respected colleagues. In October 2010 she did four shows during the 2nd Pensacola Beach Songwriters Festival and six weeks later was in Alabama to play at the 26th Frank Brown International Songwriters’ Festival. From those two events came compliments that included invitations to Nashville, where she traveled to in January 2011 for writing, meetings, and playing live. Just a few weeks later it was off to Las Vegas, where she played on 'The Strip.' All this while still just 21 years old.
That year (2011) also saw her - among many other performances - at the 4th Sarasota Songwriters Festival, back at the Pensacola Beach and Frank Brown International songwriters festivals, and debuting at the 11th Annual DeLand (FL) Original Music Festival. Her songwriting, of course, continued along the way as well.
The momentum continued in 2012 as Melissa broke into a new market, playing in Atlanta, which made Georgia the fifth state she has performed in. One highlight was her participation in an invitation-only, merit-based Young Songwriters Workshop in Nashville. She made two trips to Music City in 2012.
In June she was interviewed on a radio show hosted by Blues Hall of Famer Sonny Rock, who had been playing her music. Later she was the subject of a TV news story that the ABC affiliate in the Florida Panhandle did on Melissa doing a middle school visit. That was in conjunction with the 4th Pensacola Beach Songwriters Festival, an event she made her third consecutive appearance at, just like the 28th Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival one month later.
Links are provided at right to Melissa’s social media sites, such as her official YouTube channel and her musician page on Facebook, the latter of which has followers from 20 different countries. In addition to those linked to, she also has a page on WomensRadio Music Review.
