Tatjana Mead Chamis
Acting Principal Viola
Jon & Carol Walton Associate Principal Viola Chair
Violist Tatjana Mead Chamis has distinguished her career with successes as a principal violist, chamber musician, soloist, Latin Grammy-nominated recording artist, teacher and lecturer, as well as advocating for underheard or suppressed music and experimenting with new music.
Principal Violist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for the 2018-2024 seasons, Mead Chamis has held the title of Associate Principal Viola of the PSO since 2003. Mead Chamis joined the orchestra in 1993, under the directorship of Lorin Maazel, while still a student of the Curtis Institute of Music, at age 22. She has since been featured on numerous performances as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra, often premiering or introducing pieces not yet heard in Pittsburgh, such as the Lionel Tertis transcription of Elgar's Cello Concerto, Boris Pigovat’s Requiem for the Holocaust, and Alan Shulman’s Theme and Variations. This coming season, she will perform the viola transcription of Fratres, by Arvo Pärt, with the Pittsburgh Symphony.
In 2015, Mead Chamis formed a string quartet of fellow Pittsburgh Symphony members, the Clarion Quartet, an ensemble dedicated to performing the many works of suppressed and forgotten composers. The Clarion Quartet’s debut album, Breaking the Silence, was released in February of 2018 on the TYE/Naxos label. The quartet has played at the site of the Theresienstadt concentration camp in the Czech Republic, at the Berlin American Academy, on tour in Canada, joined the great baritone Matthias Goerne in concert, and appeared on the Chamber Music Pittsburgh Series with pianist Roman Rabinovich. The quartet began in 2023, a partnership with Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, featuring a series of concerts over two years, which reach audiences across the globe.
After a year-long sabbatical in 2012, living and performing in Brazil, Mead Chamis returned to the US with Brazilian works for viola, which became the focus of a solo recording project, including a new viola sonata written for her by the great pianist/composer, André Mehmari, which garnered a 2017 Latin Grammy nomination. The album, Viola Brasil, was released in 2022. Mead Chamis and Mehmari will perform his sonata as well as other works from this album as invited artists of the 2024 International Viola Congress, in Brazil.
Mead Chamis performs chamber music and solo recitals in the U.S. and internationally, including various appearances at the Caramoor International Music Festival, Vail's Bravo Festival, Halcyon Chamber Music Festival, and Swananoa Chamber Festival. Apart from her solo performances with the PSO, she has appeared as soloist with the Utah Symphony, Porto Alegre and Sao Paulo Symphony orchestras in Brazil.
American born, Mead Chamis began her musical studies on the violin at age 7 while living in Germany. It was in Salt Lake City, Utah, that she switched to the viola while studying with Mikhail Boguslavsky, co-founder of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. She continued her studies at the Curtis Institute of Music with Joseph dePasquale, former principal viola of the Philadelphia Orchestra, graduating in 1994.
Mead Chamis has been a frequent artist/lecturer and teaches orchestral repertoire at Carnegie Mellon University.
