Rate My Professor Melia Watras

Melia Watras is a distinguished violist, composer, and educator in Arts and Culture, serving as Professor of Viola and Chair of Strings at the University of Washington School of Music, where she holds the Ruth Sutton Waters Endowed Professorship. Hailed by Gramophone as an artist of commanding and poetic personality and by The Strad as staggeringly virtuosic, Watras studied with Distinguished Professor Atar Arad at Indiana University, earning Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees as well as the Performer’s Certificate. She began her teaching career there as Arad’s Associate Instructor and later as Visiting Lecturer, and studied chamber music at the Juilliard School while serving as teaching assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet. She has also taught viola and chamber music at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Strasbourg Conservatoire in France, and Chosun University in South Korea, and served as guest professor at Indiana University. For twenty years, Watras co-founded and performed worldwide as violist of the renowned Corigliano Quartet, recording thirteen albums including a Naxos release honored by The New Yorker as one of the Ten Best Classical Recordings of the Year.

Watras has sustained a prolific career commissioning, premiering, and recording new works, with her compositions performed in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Bloomington, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, and Wales. Commissions include pieces by Mary Kouyoumdjian and Ha-Yang Kim for the 2025-26 season, and her music has been performed by Atar Arad, Michael Jinsoo Lim, Cristina Valdés, Rose Wollman, and others. Her discography encompasses The almond tree duos (Planet M Records, 2025), Play/Write (2024), String Masks (2022), Firefly Songs (2020), Schumann Resonances (2019), 26 (Sono Luminus, 2017), Ispirare (2015), Viola Solo (2004), and contributions to Corigliano Quartet recordings such as A Black November Turkey (Naxos, 2008). She adapted and published John Corigliano’s Fancy on a Bach Air for viola with G. Schirmer, Inc. In 2024, Watras received the Maurice W. Riley Award from the American Viola Society for her contributions as performer, composer, teacher, and leader. She has penned articles for the Journal of the American Viola Society, The Strad, Strings, and the Juilliard Journal, and her performances have aired on NPR’s Performance Today.