Melia Watras

BIOGRAPHY

Melia Watras has been hailed by Gramophone as “an artist of commanding and poetic personality” and by The Strad as “staggeringly virtuosic.” As a violist/composer/collaborative artist, she has sustained a distinguished career as a creator and facilitator of new music and art.

In the 2025-26 season, highlights include performances of world premieres: works written for Watras by composers Mary Kouyoumdjian and Ha-Yang Kim, as well as her new solo viola piece to be performed by Anthony Devroye in Paris. A new album of her compositions is slated to be recorded for Planet M Records.

Watras’s much-lauded work as a recording artist spans nearly three decades. Her latest album, of her composition The almond tree duos, was recognized by Bandcamp Daily as being among the best contemporary Classical music of the month. Berlin-based music magazine 15 Questions called the duos “pure, poignant, powerful in their immediacy.” The WholeNote notes that her recording Play/Write “unfolds an exquisite world in which beauty and dreams flirt with sorrow.” String Masks, a collection of her own compositions including the titular work which utilizes Harry Partch instruments, was praised for “not only the virtuoso’s sensitive playing, but also her innovative and daring spirit,” by the Journal of the American Viola Society. Textura hailed her compositional debut album, Firefly Songs, for “distilling rich life experiences into strikingly original musical form.” Schumann Resonances was described by the American Record Guide as “a rare balance of emotional strength and technical delicacy,” with The Strad writing of 26 “a beautiful celebration of 21st century viola music.” Ispirare made numerous Best of 2015 lists, including the Chicago Reader’s (“Watras knocked the wind out of me with the dramatically dark beauty of this recording”). A Seattle Times Critics’ Pick for Short Stories, the newspaper marveled at her “velocity that seems beyond the reach of human fingers.” Strings praised her “stunning virtuosic talent” in her debut solo CD, Viola Solo, and declared her second release, Prestidigitation, “astounding and both challenging and addictive to listen to.”

Watras’s compositions have been performed in the US cities of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Bloomington (IN), and countries including Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, and Wales. She has been commissioned by the American Viola Society, the Avalon String Quartet, violinists Tekla Cunningham, Mark Fewer, Rachel Lee Priday and Michael Jinsoo Lim, violists Anthony Devroye and Rose Wollman, cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, pianist Cristina Valdés, accordionist Jeanne Velonis, with works performed by violist Atar Arad, singer Galia Arad, pianist Winston Choi, Harry Partch Instrumentarium Director Charles Corey, violinists Manuel Guillén and Yura Lee, vocalist Carrie Henneman Shaw, percussionist Bonnie Whiting and the ensemble Frequency. Her music has been heard on National Public Radio’s Performance Today and can be found on the albums The almond tree duos; Kinetic; Partita Party; Play/Write; String Masks; 3 Songs for Bellows, Buttons and Keys; Firefly Songs; Schumann Resonances and 26. Watras’s adaptation of John Corigliano’s Fancy on a Bach Air for viola, which she recorded for her Viola Solo album, is published by G. Schirmer, Inc.

For twenty years, Watras concertized worldwide and recorded extensively as violist of the renowned Corigliano Quartet, which she co-founded. The quartet appears on 13 albums, including their recording on the Naxos label, which was honored as one of the Ten Best Classical Recordings of the Year by The New Yorker.

Melia Watras studied with Distinguished Professor Atar Arad at Indiana University, earning Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and the prestigious Performer’s Certificate. While at Indiana, Watras began her teaching career as Arad’s Associate Instructor, later becoming a member of the faculty as a Visiting Lecturer. She went on to study chamber music at the Juilliard School while serving as a teaching assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet. Watras is currently Professor of Viola at the University of Washington, where she holds the Ruth Sutton Waters Endowed Professorship. In 2024, the American Viola Society presented Watras with the Maurice W. Riley Award, for her distinguished contributions to the viola as a performer, composer, teacher and leader. She has penned articles for the Journal of the American Viola Society, The Strad (online), Strings and the Juilliard Journal.

—August 2025