Melia Watras
Melia Watras is an American violist, composer and professor who performs as a soloist, chamber musician and recording artist. She has commissioned, premiered and recorded many new works and has played at major venues such as Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall and Alice Tully Hall. Her compositions have been performed across the United States and in Europe.
Watras studied at Indiana University and the Juilliard School, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees and the Performer's Certificate. She was a teaching assistant for Atar Arad and studied chamber music at Juilliard while assisting the Juilliard String Quartet.
She co-founded the Corigliano Quartet and played with the ensemble for twenty years; their Naxos album was praised by The New Yorker as one of the Ten Best Classical Recordings of the year. In 2024 she received the Maurice W. Riley Award from the American Viola Society for her work as a performer, composer, teacher and leader.
Since 2004 she has been on the faculty of the University of Washington in Seattle, where she is Chair of Strings and holds the Ruth Sutton Waters Endowed Professorship. She has taught viola and chamber music around the United States and abroad, including at Indiana University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Strasbourg Conservatoire, and Chosun University.
A prolific composer, Watras has written works commissioned by major ensembles and performers, with performances in many U.S. cities and in Denmark, Spain, Switzerland and Wales. She adapted John Corigliano’s Fancy on a Bach Air for viola, published by G. Schirmer, and her music has appeared on NPR and on several recordings.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 05:47 (CET).