She was born in 1966 in Hong Kong and currently resides in Montreal where she has been a faculty member at McGill University since 2010. Notable works by this artist include and blue sparks burn(2002) for violin and piano, Common Ground (1993) for orchestra, and San Rocco (1991) for oboe d'amore, SATB chamber choir, and chimes.
For her graduate studies, Hui pursued and earned both her master's and doctoral degrees in composition from the California Institute of the Arts and Yale University, respectively.
Mentors to Hui during her collegiate studies in composition are noted as Jacob Druckman, Mel Powell, Martin Bresnick, Earl Kim, and Morton Subotnick.
These two works were followed by Lacrymosa (1996), which calls for a soprano vocalist in its scoring, and Woman: Songs on poems by Sandra Cisneros (1997), featuring a mezzo-soprano among the flute, viola, and cello parts.
[1] Additionally, in 1998 Melissa Hui wrote the score to the Oscar-nominated short film, "Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square", which was directed by Shui-Bo Wang.