Faculty violist Melia Watras hosts a celebration of the release of her new album, String Masks. Music composed by Watras and performed by members of Frequency (violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim, Watras and faculty cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir) will be featured, as well as a video presentation and Q & A with the composer and performers.
Masks are required in all indoor spaces on the UW campus. Capacity in Brechemin Auditorium is limited to 100. Patrons must show proof of vaccination or recent negative provider-administered COVID-19 PCR test for entry to live events at The Music Building. Individuals unable to be fully vaccinated, including children under age five and people with a medical or religious exemption, must have proof of a negative provider-administered COVID-19 PCR test (taken within 72 hours of the performance). UW staff will check for proof of vaccination and negative COVID PCR tests at the doors as a condition of entry. Proof of negative test result must come from a test provider, a laboratory or a health care provider. Home or self-administered tests will not be accepted. Details of these protocols available here.
PROGRAM
Melia Watras Album Release Celebration: String Masks
Michael Jinsoo Lim, violin
Melia Watras, viola
Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello
Planet M Records presents String Masks, the new album of compositions by violist/composer Melia Watras. The titular work, String Masks, incorporates actors and Harry Partch instruments to dive into a fantastical vision of an underworld inhabited by string-playing legends from the past. The album also showcases solo works for viola, cello and voice, and her string trio, Kreutzer.
Welcome
Black wing, brown wing for viola solo (2019)……………………….Melia Watras (b. 1969)
Melia Watras, viola
String Masks for for voices, viola, violin, Harmonic Canon, Cloud-Chamber Bowls and
Bass Marimba (2017)…………………………………………………………Melia Watras
I. Transience
Video of live performance: Sheila Daniels, actor/director; Jose Gonzales, actor;
Rhonda J. Soikowski, actor; Michael Jinsoo Lim, violin; Melia Watras, viola;
Charles Corey, Harmonic Canon and Bass Marimba;
Bonnie Whiting, Cloud-Chamber Bowls
Videography by Jerry Morrison
Vetur öngum lánar lið for violin and cello (2017)………………Melia Watras
Michael Jinsoo Lim, violin
Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello
Vetur for cello solo (2016)…………………………………………….……Melia Watras
Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello
Question and answer session
Music video by Michelle Smith-Lewis
Music by Melia Watras
Performers: Frequency (Lim, Watras, Thorsteinsdóttir)
Artist Bios
Frequency
A “dream string trio,” according to King FM-Seattle’s Second Inversion, Frequency presents innovative, invigorating and intriguing chamber music concerts. Composed of Michael Jinsoo Lim (violinist and artistic director), Melia Watras (violist) and Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir (cellist), Frequency is a modular chamber music group, breaking into different parts to present solos, duos and trios, while also expanding with renowned guest artists to perform in a variety of formations. Frequency members have performed as soloists and chamber musicians worldwide, in leading concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Suntory Hall, and Disney Hall.
Michael Jinsoo Lim
Violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim has been praised by Gramophone for playing with “delicious abandon,” and hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a “conspicuously accomplished champion of contemporary music.” Concertmaster and solo violinist for the internationally acclaimed Pacific Northwest Ballet, Lim is featured as soloist with the company in concertos by Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bach and others, and has toured with PNB to Paris and New York City. Lim is artistic director of the Seattle-based ensemble Frequency and was co-founder of the award-winning Corigliano Quartet, with whom he appeared on over a dozen albums. His discography can be found on Naxos, Planet M, Sono Luminus, DreamWorks, Albany, Bridge, CRI, Bayer Records, RIAX and New Focus. Lim has served on the faculty of the Banff Centre, taught at Indiana University as a guest professor, and currently serves on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts.

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.