roseminna watson

Music has been my most consistent and extensively practiced medium. It was not something that I started doing consciously or intentionally. I was an infant. My mother propped me on one knee and plucked her violin in front of me. That was the instant I first felt my thread, somewhere, distant and pulling. Something unnameable is at the other end. I have yielded to its pull, following the tension of this thread ever since that day. I consider art and writing to be essential elements in my process, but I consider music to be where those things are leading to—it is the top of my chain. Music for me is the ultimate : it integrates and binds together my whole being, connects the rhythm of my breath to the resistance and strength of my muscles, the rhythm of speaking to the uninterrupted flow of spontaneous singing sound.  Music connects the largest systems of my body to the finest ones, marries my analytical mind to my emotional one. Music tells me how to move and what to do with this form I’ve been living in, this form I’ve been given. 

At times, my feelings of dissimilarity in traditional classical music settings have led me to experience an urge to quit the violin, but I have more tenaciously latched on to an undeniable and very deep compulsion to keep going.  I still do not know exactly why, but I think it is because somehow this little piece of wood builds a bridge between my body and the boundless universe, reveals metaphors and reasons — nudges me forward. Despite always knowing that my path would almost certainly be untraditional in relation to that of a typical violinist, I have seized the privilege of studying and performing with dozens of legendary classical musicians at several schools and many summer festivals that do happen to be along the beaten track. I am just now beginning to replace the sense of burden that had previously laced my gift, with a brimming sense of gratitude for all of the experience, insight and complexity that it has brought me; how it has steered me through my life, and what it is about to continue to become. 

Below you will find my full and formal musical BIO :

Roseminna McLeod Watson began work on the violin at the age of three, and one year later finally acknowledged her need for some help with the endeavor.  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 has had the opportunity to collaborate in performance with many renowned artists including Menahem Pressler, Natasha Brofsky, Jean-Michel Fonteneau, Axel Strauss, Paul Hersh, David Tanenbaum, Jennifer Culp, Jodi Levitz and Donald Weilerstein.  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.

Ms. Watson is the former first violinist of the Aiana String Quartet, winners of the 2011 String Prize at the Coleman International Chamber Music Competition.  From 2011-2013, the ensemble was the Young Professional String Quartet in Residence at the Butler School of Music at UT Austin under the mentorship of the Miró Quartet.  Since Aiana’s amicable dissolution in 2013, Ms. Watson has been rebalancing her energy and continuing her life-long exploration of multiple expressive disciplines — painting, writing, video, and composition.  Fascinated by the human body as a vehicle that can carry us closer to the divine, all of Ms. Watson’s expressive creations are imbued with a haunting immediacy and poignant nostalgia. She currently makes art of all kinds, performs as a solo-act multimedia artist/singer/songwriter/violinist, is a frequent collaborator with dancers, artists, and other musicians, and is a founding member of H u m m i n g O w l — a duo with her singer/songwriter/sitarist husband, Pablo Escalante. In March of 2020, Roseminna 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. Roseminna’s solo album, Limbic Hymnal (2017), is available at roseminnawatson.com for physical copy, and on the iTunes store for digital download.

Roseminna plays an Agostino De Plani Violin from 1779 and a commissioned bow by Benoit Rolland, 2015.