1. Education

2. Career
    Performing and recording artist  Composer  Professor 

3. Discography
    Solo recordings  Chamber music recordings (selected)  Recordings of music composed by Melia Watras 

4. Compositions
    Solo  Chamber music 

5. References

6. External links

Melia Watras is a prominent American violist, composer and professor of viola. She is a soloist, chamber musician and recording artist, who has commissioned, premiered and recorded numerous new compositions, and appeared at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall and Alice Tully Hall. Her compositions have been performed in the United States and Europe. Educated at Indiana University and the Juilliard School, Watras has been on the faculty of the University of Washington in Seattle since 2005.

Education

Watras attended Indiana University, where she studied with Abraham Skernick and Atar Arad, earning bachelor's and master's degrees and the prestigious Performer's Certificate. While at Indiana, she served as Arad's teaching assistant. She studied chamber music at the Juilliard School, while also teaching as an assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet.^[1]

Career

Performing and recording artist

As a recording artist, Watras has garnered considerable attention and praise from the media. Her solo CDs have been recognized by publications such as Gramophone (which hailed her as “an artist of commanding and poetic personality”), The Strad, ("staggeringly virtuosic") and Strings (“Watras is a young player in possession of stunning virtuosic talent and deserving of the growing acclaim”). She has been heard on numerous radio programs, including NPR's All Things Considered and Performance Today, and a live performance for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation.^[2]

Composers that have written solo viola works especially for Watras include: Brent Michael Davids, Richard Karpen, Shih-Wei Lo, Juan Pampin, Joshua Parmenter, Shulamit Ran, Kathryn Sullivan, Heinrich Taube, Diane Thome, Andrew Waggoner, and Anna Weesner. As a soloist and chamber musician, Watras has given world premieres of works by Atar Arad, John Corigliano, Brent Michael Davids, Tina Davidson, Alexander De Varon, Joël-François Durand, Jesse Jones, Richard Karpen, Garth Knox, Michael Jinsoo Lim, Shih-Wei Lo, Patrick Long, Eric Maestri, Anthony Moore, Jeffrey Mumford, Ichiro Nodaira, Juan Pampin, Joshua Parmenter, Robert Pound, Shulamit Ran, Adam Silverman, Kathryn Sullivan, Sir John Taverner, Heinrich Taube, Diane Thome, Dan Visconti, Andrew Waggoner, Anna Weesner, Frances White, Theodore Wiprud, Tamar Witkin and Mischa Zupko.

Watras is violist of the Seattle-based ensemble, Frequency, for whom she has composed, and a member of Open End, with whom she has performed in France, Denmark and the United States and recorded for Albany Records.^[3][4] For twenty years, Watras concertized worldwide and recorded extensively as violist of the renowned Corigliano Quartet, which she co-founded. The ensemble's album on the Naxos label was honored as one of the Ten Best Classical Recordings of the Year by The New Yorker.^[5] Other chamber music explorations include improvising in concert with jazz innovators Cuong Vu and Ted Poor. She and Vu premiered and recorded a work of his for viola and trumpet.

Composer

Watras's compositions have been performed in New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Bloomington (IN), Denmark and Spain, by artists such as violist Atar Arad, cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir and violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim. Her music appears on her album 26.^[6] Watras's adaptation of John Corigliano's Fancy on a Bach Air for viola is published by G. Schirmer, Inc. and can be heard on her Viola Solo CD.

Professor

Watras serves as Professor of Viola and chair of Strings at the University of Washington, where she holds the Adelaide D. Currie Cole Endowed Professorship ^[7] and was awarded the Donald E. Petersen Endowed Fellowship and the Royalty Research Fund. Watras has given viola and chamber music classes throughout the United States and abroad, at schools such as Indiana University, Cleveland Institute of Music, Strasbourg Conservatoire (France), and Chosun University (South Korea). She has twice returned to her alma mater, Indiana, to teach as a guest professor.

Discography

Solo recordings

Shulamit Ran: Perfect Storm for viola solo (2010)* (CD SLE 70002)

Henryk Wieniawski: Rêverie for viola and piano; with Kimberly Russ, piano (CD FDS 58007)

Chamber music recordings (selected)

Atar Arad: Toccatina a la Turk for two violas (2008)*; Atar Arad and Melia Watras, violas

(CD SLE 70007)

Melia Watras: Liquid Voices for violin and viola (2013)*; Michael Jinsoo Lim, violin; Melia Watras, viola (CD SLE 70006)

Recordings of music composed by Melia Watras

* denotes world premiere recording

Compositions

Selected works by Melia Watras:

Solo

Violin:

Luminous Points for violin solo (2013)

Viola:

Cello:

Prelude for cello solo (2014)

Chamber music

Viola and piano:

Viola, percussion and violin:

Violin and viola:

Liquid Voices for violin and viola (2013)

Violin, viola and cello:

Kreutzer for violin, viola and cello (2016)

Voice and cello:

Vetur öngum lánar lið for voice and cello (2016)

Voice and viola:

Berceuse for a Singer in London for voice and viola (2015)

Voice and violin:

William Wilson for voice and violin (2016)

References

External links

• Melia Watras
• Frequency Ensemble
• Corigliano Quartet

• Lisa (French musician)
• Lisa Fury (singer)
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