Dr Melissa Carroll (Hickey, 1997)
Rose among the horns
Not many people can say they owe it all to a great `natural embouchure’. In fact, most people wouldn’t know what an embouchure is, let alone have great one.
It is, for the uninitiated, a word that describes the very particular way musicians position their lips on the mouthpiece of a wind instrument. With trumpet, it’s a make-or-break skill. As famous jazz exponent Tom Harrell once observed: `The hardest part of playing the trumpet is the physical act of making the sound.’
In primary school, when students were given the chance to trial a range of orchestral instruments, a teacher noticed Melissa seemed to have a gift. `When they did music testing in Grade 5, my natural embouchure was well-suited to trumpet,’ she remembers.
The teacher suggested she switch form piano to horn, and Melissa jumped at the chance—perhaps not strictly for musical reasons.
`I had already been playing piano for years and I thought it was much easier to play trumpet as there was only one line of music to follow. And not many girls played trumpet at primary school, and I enjoyed beating the boys.’
At BGGS, the rarity of female trumpeters worked in her favour again, and she flourished. `I was immediately placed in Senior Band from Grade 8, which was quite rare.’
It was just the beginning of an enduring musical love affair that has changed and enriched her life in many unexpected ways.
Melissa met her husband through playing trumpet, travelled the world because of it, and even appeared on the front page of national newspaper the Irish Independent when she played trumpet in a ballgown during the international finals of cult Irish-heritage pageant Rose of Tralee.
Tellingly, when Melissa speaks of her life, her considerable academic and professional achievements—she completed a law degree and was admitted as a solicitor before completing a medical degree and is now a practicing dermatologist—are often footnotes to her music accomplishments.
`Without trumpet, my life could have been very different.'
`I love the opportunities that the trumpet has brought me,’ Melissa says. `I played in the Australian Youth Wind Orchestra, travelling overseas twice, including as a featured soloist in Europe. I was a member of the Queensland Youth Orchestra for many years and met my husband there.’
In 2004 Melissa, with her husband Francis and musician friends, founded the Queensland Wind Orchestra, which continues to go from strength to strength, winning the prestigious Premier Band at the 2026 Australian National Band Championships.
But perhaps one of Melissa’s most remarkable and long-standing music connections has been to BGGS and its annual Gala Concert.
`The first Gala was in 1997 when I was Music Captain in Year 12. Until then, all our concerts had been held in the Gehrmann Theatre,’ she remembers.
Billed as a `Sunday Proms Concert’, that first off-site event was held at City Hall, with a net of balloons released over the audience at the conclusion.
`We had no idea it would become the wonderful Gala spectacle it is now,’ Melissa says. Equally, she could never have imagined she would still be taking part. `To my delight, I have been invited back every year since as a guest Old Girl performer.
An undoubted highlight was sharing the stage with her daughter Lucinda, then in Year 7, at the 2025 BGGS Gala Concert: Preludes and Codas, celebrating the School’s 150th anniversary.
`I had been waiting decades for that, and it was just lovely,’ Melissa says.
In 2026 mother and daughter again took part in Gala, continuing and extending an extraordinary musical legacy.
`I am indebted to BGGS and its music program for the invaluable life skills I learned—confidence, responsibility, teamwork, performance skills, and the importance of working hard towards a goal. BGGS encouraged me to believe in myself and what I could achieve,' Melissa says.
`In 2025 my first daughter started her own journey at BGGS. I cannot wait to see how she will grow as a Grammar girl and how BGGS will enrich her life at—at School and beyond—as it has mine.’
Melissa founded and remains a member of the Queensland Wind Orchestra, Australia's leading wind band
Melissa was crowned Queensland Rose of Tralee in 2002 and travelled to Ireland for the finals of the international pageant celebrating Irish heritige
Melissa, centre, was Music Captain at BGGS in 1997
Melissa juggles a work as a dermatologist with parenthood and a busy practice and performance schedule