Melanie Ann White

Age 49, passed peacefully at home surrounded by her loving family on Sunday, August 19, 2012, after a courageous year long challenge with the most aggressive, rarest form of breast cancer combinations- -Triple Negative Breast Cancer and Inflammatory Breast Cancer.

Melanie Pereira was born on July 26, 1963 to Francis and Sophie Pereira, in Karachi, Pakistan. At the age of 4, Melanie began playing the piano and, thus, the "music seed" was planted and would years later fully blossom into a true lifetime passion and love. While Melanie's formative training was as a classical pianist, it was the sounds of Rock 'n Roll that caught her attention as she ventured to America, at 17, to pursue a degree at the University of La Verne. It was at ULV where Melanie first started sharing the gift of music with young children either through her involvement with Summer Services via the Church of the Brethren, volunteering with her former professor at St. Mark's in Upland, or giving private piano lessons. Over these four years, Melanie's onstage performance-as a classical pianist as well as vocally-came to life which resulted in Melanie earning a full-scholarship to the University of Cincinnati Music Conservatory. Her strong love and passion for music would enable her to pursue a Master's degree in music performance, with the prospect of eventually moving on to a career as a classical pianist or professorship. However, after two short trips to one of the top music conservatories in the US, Melanie, with her adventurous spirit, decided to pursue another path in music and returned home to enroll in the musicology program at the Claremont Graduate University.

While at CGU, Melanie was hired on at St. Dorothy School, in Glendora, CA, to develop and teach music appreciation to children in grades K thru 8th. After earning her Master's, Melanie's role at St. Dorothy's expanded to include full-time teaching duties, plus still providing for all of the music appreciation needs including leading the children with several all-school performances each year. She then moved on to St. Christopher's Catholic School in West Covina, where she had additional responsibilities including an administrative stint as vice principal for several years. Of course, music appreciation as well as all-school musicals were now a regular part of Melanie's teaching responsibilities. With more than 10 years of classroom and administrative experience with parochial schools, Melanie crossed over to the public school system as a 6th Grade teacher at Euclid Elementary School in Ontario. This also provided Melanie with an opportunity to be closer to home in order to spend more time with her children, Nick and Bridget. Melanie would soon discover that music could play a very important role with the enhancement of core curriculum comprehension as well as overall school performance for all students, including students in ESL programs.

In 1999, buoyed by her young, entrepreneurial spirit, Melanie decided to launch a new business venture that would provide a unique music based core curriculum enhancement program to a number of schools within the Upland Unified, Claremont Unified, Alta Loma Unified, Walnut Unified, Duarte Unified and the Chino Valley Unified school districts, in addition to a number of private schools. This new venture, which provided schools with a cost effective means to provide music appreciation by spreading the cost for Melanie's services among a broader number of schools, enabled Melanie to do what she had come to love most-sharing the gift of music with as many children as possible while providing a sound alternative to keep music as part of the school curriculum. Even though she was out of the classroom for the first time in over 25 years, while faced with multiple life-threatening challenges as well as tough treatment regimens, Melanie continued to write new material to share with local schools as well as, release new material for viewing enjoyment and/or distribution on www.youtube.com/user/MWPinkNotes and iTunes. Her music lives on.

Melanie is survived by her loving and devoted husband of 28 years, David, and her two wonderful children, Nick and Bridget, as well as her mother, Sophie Pereira, sisters Michelle Solomon (Abraham), Eleanor Rodrigues (Ken), Naila Rodricks (Rodney), Candice Pereira, and brother Felix Pereira (Lorraine), as well as seven nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles (including A. Candi and U. Hyacinth), and numerous cousins (including Marielle and Claudine and their respective families). Melanie joins her father Francis Pereira, as well as all of her in-laws, Arthur, Hideko, Joseph and James White.

A Memorial Mass will be held at St. Anthony Catholic Church (2110 N. San Antonio Avenue, Upland, CA 91784) on Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 5 P.M. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that a gift can be made in memory of Melanie to the City of Hope to support the children's music therapy program. Please make checks payable to the City of Hope. In the memo line please put "Melanie Ann White". Please mail to: City of Hope, Attention: Janet Morgan; 1055 Wilshire Blvd., 12th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90017.