Violist/composer Melia Watras and writer Sean Harvey unveil their latest collaboration, Broken Bell, a mashup of a concert and a play. The program consists of Harvey’s theater piece, interwoven with world premieres of compositions by Watras and music by Alan Hovhaness. Joining Watras onstage are actors James Schilling (Dacha Theater) and Amy Thone (UW faculty), Seattle Symphony members Elisa Barston (violin) and Eric Han (cello), Pacific Northwest Ballet concertmaster Michael Jinsoo Lim and UW viola student Flora Cummings. Broken Bell is directed Sheila Daniels, Chair of the Theater Department at Cornish College of the Arts.
Program Notes
by Melia Watras except where indicated
Sean Harvey: Broken Bell
Homo erectus is an early species of human that died out just over 100,000 years ago after living and thriving as an apex predator throughout southern and eastern Africa, Europe, Asia and Indonesia for approximately two million years. They are believed to have invented the use of fire. There are relatively few remains of homo erectus extant and what we know of them is mostly conjecture.
Broken Bell posits a world tens of thousands of years in the future when the last of the dinosaurs—the birds—have finally died out and there are few remains of our species left. A successor hominid species combs what meager ruins they can find for hints of what our lives were like. In the process they come across sheet music from tonight’s performance, but can’t make heads or tails of it.
—Sean Harvey
Melia Watras: Salix lasiandra sings for viola solo (2021)
The willow sings to the fiddler.
Dedicated to the conspicuously fabulous Flora Cummings.
Melia Watras: Rapsodia for string quartet (2024)
In Rapsodia, I expanded material and techniques from my composition for two violins, Sphere, written for the celebrated artist, industrial and architectural designer Ron Arad’s installation, The Quartet, at the Royal Academy Exhibition Summer 2024, in London.
Rapsodia features all four instruments playing independently, lining up at certain structural points. The resulting combinations give the work, at times, rhythmic complexity while simultaneously maintaining a sense of simplicity within each voice’s line.
Alan Hovhaness: Chahagir for solo viola, Op. 56a
Alan Hovhaness (1912-2000) was one of America’s most prolific 20th-century composers, with 434 opus numbers to his credit, including 67 symphonies. Chahgir, which means “torch-bearer” in Armenian, was written in 1944, during a period which saw Hovhaness begin his exploration of his Armenian heritage and the use of ancient modes of Armenia and the surrounding regions and countries. Hovhaness spent the last 3 decades of his life living in Seattle. Upon his move to the Pacific Northwest, he remarked, "I like the mountains very much. I don't have to go to Switzerland, I expect to stay here."
Melia Watras: Memories - shadows - dreams for string quartet (2024)
Mother bathes baby pitch C in the ocean. As C blinks and laughs, a giant manta ray comes close to shore. What a gift for C’s future.
Along a thin, dirt road, a low roof reveals its secrets. Creatures resembling small shrimp are side by side, back to back, tightly together, creating tiles. Fins made of a shell material act as legs. Dancing in unison they sculpt the air with their almost transparent, iridescent limbs.
Through a fingertip, pitch D connects with a dashed outline of themself in another dimension.
An orb reminiscent of a giant peanut butter cup on its side appears in the air and hovers at eye view. Emitting light it speaks in a tongue not of Earth. The intensity grows to such a height we pass out and crumple to the floor.
Flying in circles as high as the tree tops, the laughing old lady remembers. The old man smiles and chuckles too.
Thank you to all of the artists and to everyone at the UW School of Music and the Meany Center for the Performing Arts who helped make tonight’s concert possible.
—Melia Watras
Biographies
Praised for her “glowing sound” and “technical aplomb” (The Strad), violinist Elisa Barston is the Seattle Symphony’s Principal Second Violin. Prior to the appointment, she served as the Associate Concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for eight seasons and was a first violin section member of The Cleveland Orchestra. As a soloist and chamber musician, Barston has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Asia, appearing with the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the St. Louis and Taipei symphony orchestras, among many others. In 1986, she made her European debut with the English Chamber Orchestra at the request of Sir Yehudi Menuhin. Barston studied at the University of Southern California and Indiana University.
Flora Cummings is a Seattle native and a third-year music student double majoring in Music and Wildlife Conservation at the University of Washington, where she studies with Professor Melia Watras and holds the Milton Katims Viola Scholarship. She began violin lessons at age six with Laura Martin, before studying viola with Dr. Alessandra Barrett (a former student of Watras) and violin with Dr. Sarah Pizzichemi. Flora was the runner-up in the North Corner Chamber Orchestra’s 2020 concerto competition, and placed first in the Washington State Solo Viola Competition in 2022. She joined the Seattle Collaborative Orchestra in high school and was a soloist with the ensemble her senior year. Flora is an avid chamber music player and loves to play Scottish fiddle music - playing with her family band and performing at the 2018 “More Music@the Moore” showcase for young talent. In October, 2023, she won the prestigious Silver Pendant Competition for Scottish Gaelic learners at the Royal National Mòd, held in Oban, Scotland. Winners of the competition are recognized as among the best emerging Gaelic vocalists in the world. She received top marks in both music and Gaelic, earning her a chance to sing for broadcast on BBC television, as well as live on BBC Radio nan Gàidheal. Flora plays on a 2017 viola by Portland maker David Van Zandt.
Sheila Daniels is a multi-disciplinary Theater Maker. Directing work includes Indecent (Seattle Rep), The Wolves (ACT), A Streetcar Named Desire, Crime and Punishment and multiple other credits with INTIMAN Theatre; Dancing At Lughnasa (TANTRUM): Jackie & Me (Seattle Children’s Theatre); According to Coyote (Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis); A Winter’s Tale, Much Ado About Nothing and multiple other credits with Seattle Shakespeare Company; Lydia, The Normal Heart, Breaking the Code (Strawberry Theatre Workshop); This Wide Night (Seattle Public Theatre); Waiting for Lefty, God’s Country (CHAC) and Anaphylaxis (Throwing Bones/IRT, NYC). As a deviser/choreographer Sheila has self-produced multiple Movement-based works of rarely told women’s stories and co-created with other artists including Martha Enson and UMO. Upcoming projects include documentary film, Hidden Bodies: Stereotyping and Shaming of the Femme Body in American Theater and directing Eleanor Burgess’ The Niceties for INTIMAN.
Korean-born Canadian cellist Eric Han made his concerto debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at the age of 14. Following his debut, he had many engagements with Toronto Sinfonietta, Toronto Chamber Players and Boston’s Symphony by the Sea. As a guest artist and Artist in Residence, Han has participated at various festivals including the Moritzburg Festival, La Jolla SummerFest, Music@Menlo and Sarasota Music Festival, among others. Han studied with David Hetherington at the Glenn Gould School, and holds a Bachelor of Music from the Colburn School of Music under the tutelage of Ronald Leonard. Han is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Peter Wiley and Carter Brey. Han plays on a cello made by Frank Ravatin on generous loan to him by the Maestro Foundation.
Sean Harvey is a writer, musician and traveler. He is an AI Expert at the Department of Homeland Security, where he was the first hire for DHS' AI Corps, an organization that protects public safety and civil rights in regard to artificial intelligence. He is also an affiliate with Harvard Law School's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Sean is the publisher of The Roko Report, a weekly newsletter on AI that is part substantive and part satirical. Previously he authored travel guides for the Rough Guides series.
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,” while his performances have been described as “a tour de force” and “bewitching” by the Seattle Times. Concertmaster and solo violinist for the internationally-acclaimed Pacific Northwest Ballet, Lim’s solo appearances with the company include performances in Paris, New York City, Los Angeles, Washington DC and Seattle, in concertos by Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bach, Max Richter and others. Lim was co-founder of the award-winning Corigliano Quartet, with whom he toured and recorded for twenty years and appeared on over a dozen albums, including the groups’s Naxos label CD which was honored as one of The New Yorker’s Ten Best Classical Recordings of the Year. His discography can be found on Naxos, Planet M, Sono Luminus, DreamWorks, Albany, Bridge, CRI, Bayer Records, RIAX and New Focus. His new solo album Kinetic, featuring world premieres of newly-commissioned works by Leilehua Lanzilotti, Paola Prestini and Melia Watras, was released in 2025. 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.
James Schilling (he/him) is a Seattle-based actor, educator, playwright, and musician. He is passionate about new, immersive, & devised work, collaborative storytelling, disruption of theatrical conventions, tabletop roleplaying, and making theatre for & with underserved communities (especially people who are incarcerated). He has worked with Village Theatre, The 5th Avenue Theatre, ACT Theatre, Seattle Children's Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company, Book-It Repertory Theatre, Taproot Theatre, ArtsWest, Freehold Theatre, The 14/48 Projects, Washington Ensemble Theatre, Macha Theatre Works, Dacha Theatre, and others. James works as a teaching artist independently and with Seattle Children's Theatre; he specializes in teaching improv, acting, playwriting, clown, devising, tabletop roleplaying, and social emotional wellness through theatre. James is a graduate of Cornish College of the Arts with a B.F.A in Theatre - Original Works and is a proud company member of Dacha Theatre.
Amy Thone has been a working actor in Seattle for 30 years, and is a proud member of Actor's Equity. Over that span, favorite Seattle theatres, productions and roles include: Speech and Debate, God of Carnage, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Ghosts (Seattle Repertory Theatre), Cleopatra, Prospero, Lady Macbeth, Titania, the Chorus, Beatrice, Cassius, Shylock (Seattle Shakespeare Company), King John and Titus Adronicus (Upstart Crow!), 10+ shows with the Seattle Children's Theatre, and Frost/Nixon, Leni, Our Town (Strawberry Theatre Workshop). Amy is very proud of having been a Founding Member of the now-departed New Century Theatre Company, for which she did Festen, Big Meal, My Name is Asher Lev, The Trial, The Adding Machine, and Holy Days.
Ms. Thone is the recipient of a Stranger Genius Award, and 3 Seattle Gregory Awards (six nominations). She has taught at Cornish College of the Arts for twenty years, and at UW for ten. Her passion is teaching Shakespeare, but also enjoys teaching text analysis, auditioning, and advanced contemporary acting.
Melia Watras has been hailed by Gramophone as “an artist of commanding and poetic personality” and by The Stradas “staggeringly virtuosic.” As a violist, composer and collaborative artist, she has sustained a distinguished career as a creator and facilitator of new music and art.
Watras’s much-lauded work as a recording artist spans nearly three decades, with 10 solo albums and 13 others as violist of the acclaimed Corigliano Quartet. Her recordings have been described as “an exquisite world in which beauty and dreams flirt with sorrow” (The WholeNote), “a rare balance of emotional strength and technical delicacy” (The American Record Guide), “a beautiful celebration of 21st century viola music” (The Strad), and “astounding and both challenging and addictive to listen to” (Strings).
Her compositions have been performed throughout the US and in Europe, broadcast 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 is currently Professor of Viola and Chair of Strings at the University of Washington School of Music, where she holds the Ruth Sutton Waters Endowed Professorship. In 2024, the American Viola Society commissioned a new composition by Watras and presented her with the prestigious Maurice W. Riley Award, for her distinguished contributions to the viola as a performer, composer, teacher and leader.