Melia Watras. Play/Write. CD. Planet M Records 2024.
Planet M Records presents Melia Watras’s Play/Write, a showcase for the violist as both performer and composer and celebration of creative friendships, with all but one of the works marking a world premiere recording. In addition to Watras’s performances and compositions, the album highlights the poems of Herbert Woodward Martin, and features compositions by Frances White and Pulitzer Prize finalist Leilehua Lanzilotti. Performers include violinists Rachel Lee Priday and Michael Jinsoo Lim, harpist Valérie Muzzolini, narrator/vocalists Sheila Daniels and Carrie Henneman Shaw, and the Brazen butterfly ensemble conducted by David Alexander Rahbee.