Mell Csicsila is a dynamic and versatile percussionist and drummer based in Cleveland, Ohio. He can be heard frequently as as a first-call percussionist and drummer at Cleveland's Playhouse Square and with many of the region’s professional ensembles including the award winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Cleveland Ballet, the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, Lyric Opera Cleveland, Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, Cleveland Opera and orchestras and chamber groups in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Utah, Idaho, and New York. Mell has backed dozens of touring artists including Johnny Mathis, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra, Jr., Tony Bennett, The Who, Weird Al Yankovic, and the Moody Blues. A specialist in musical theater, he has supported the national tours of over 35 Broadway musicals including Wicked, Lincoln Center’s My Fair Lady, Anastasia, The Producers, Parade, and Ragtime in Cleveland and in theatres across the United States. He has been a musician for professional theater companies in Ohio, Arizona, Utah, Florida, and Idaho and toured with the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra and Loomis Brothers Circus. Beyond traditional classical and popular music, he has performed on drums and mallets in world fusion concerts with master artists like South Indian percussion virtuoso Umayalpuram Sivaraman, Native American flutist R. Carlos Nakai, Hungary’s Török Tilla Folk Experience, Eastern European Folk and Klezmer ensembles, British Brass Bands, and a number of regional jazz, big band, rock, blues, and religious groups.

Mr. Csicsila has made over one hundred performances as a percussion soloist and recitalist where he has performed serious concert literature and novelty and ragtime pieces. In 2005, he performed the US premiere of Bertold Hummel’s Aphorisms on BACH, Op. 105 with the Trinity Chamber Orchestra.

In addition to his performance credits, Mr. Csicsila is an active teacher and clinician. He has been on faculty at Ashland University, Cuyahoga Community College, Kent State University, and Lorain County Community College. Mell was a Teaching Artist for the Cleveland Orchestra's arts-integrated Learning Through Music program for over fifteen years and has created and presented pre-concert events and a number of the orchestra's Musical Rainbow programs at Severance Hall and across Northeast Ohio. He has presented clinic sessions for members of the Percussive Arts Society and the Ohio Music Education Association, develops and presents special educational projects and clinics for other arts organizations, and has coached or advised a number of Ohio high school drum lines including eight years as an assistant director of the “All-Ohio” State Fair Band.

Mell earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Cleveland State University and has also studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music.  His principal teachers include Cleveland Orchestra members Donald Miller, Richard Weiner, Paul Yancich, Joe Adato and Jay Burnham and drum set artists Bob McKee and George Lawrence. 

Mell proudly endorses Grover Professional Percussion Products and particularly likes his bronze triangles, snare and field drums, SX snare wires, and PVC and bass drum mallets.

(photo: Mell performing with the Lincoln Center Production of “My Fair Lady” on tour at the State Theater in Cleveland, Ohio.)