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ROSEMINNA WATSON

Roseminna Watson began her relationship with the violin at the age of three.  Her mother, Clyde Watson, taught her for the following six years until she went on to study at the New England Conservatory’s Preparatory School with Melba Sandberg and Magdalena Richter. Ms. Watson holds a B.A. in Graphic Design from Yale University, a Masters in Violin Performance from Stony Brook University and an Artist’s Diploma in Chamber Music from San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She is the former first violinist of the Aiana String Quartet —winners of the 2011 String Prize at the Coleman International Chamber Music Competition —and the recipient of numerous awards and much acclaim through collaborations with renowned artists including Menahem Pressler, Donald Weilerstein, Jean-Michel Fonteneau, Axel Strauss, Paul Hersh, David Tanenbaum, Jennifer Culp, and Jodi Levitz. Her primary teachers include Clyde Watson, Melba Sandberg, Magdalena Richter, Syoko Aki, Soovin Kim, Ani Kavafian, Pamela Frank, Philip Setzer, Ian Swensen, and Mark Sokol.

Although Ms. Watson is most known as a classical violinist, she continues a life-long exploration of multiple expressive mediums, and in recent years has begun to emerge as a singer, composer and multimedia artist as well. Fascinated by the human body as a vehicle that can carry us closer to the divine, all of her expressive creations are imbued with a haunting immediacy and poignant nostalgia. She is a frequent collaborator with dancers, artists, and other musicians, is a member of Providence -based new music collective, Verdant Vibes, and a founding member of Humming Owl —a duo with her singer/songwriter/sitarist husband, Pablo Escalante. In 2020, she founded the Pandemic Polyphony project —an ever-expanding platform for collaborative connection between creators of all kinds across the boundaries of physical distance and isolation. All work created through the project can be found in the gallery at pandemicpolyphony.org. In 2022 Ms. Watson cofounded Music in the Studio, an intimate chamber music series in Cape Cod, MA, which takes place in the studio of oil painter Cammie Watson. She is currently looking forward to two world premieres of recent work —Crucible / Beloved for violin and voice, andTriptych, A Priori : Logic of the Interior for violin, clarinet, piano and tape —as well as the release of her second solo album. You can find her 2017 solo release, Limbic Hymnal, at roseminnawatson.com for physical copy, and on the iTunes store for digital download.