Photo By Zoe Prinds-Flash

Nadia Sirota is a violist, curator, and Peabody Award-winning producer and broadcaster. She is known for her “tenaciously good ear and her ability to throw herself bodily into the landscapes that composers bring to her.” (Pitchfork) In all branches of her artistic life, she aims to open classical music up to a broader audience. Nadia’s singular sound and expressive execution have served as muse to dozens of composers, including Nico Muhly, Missy Mazzoli, Marcos Balter, and David Lang.

As a soloist, Nadia has appeared with orchestras around the world, including the Colorado and Detroit Symphonies, the National Arts Centre and Spanish National Orchestras, and the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France. To date, she has released four albums of commissioned music, first things first (2009), Baroque (2013), Keep In Touch (2016), and Tessellatum (2017). Nadia is a member of Bedroom Community, a collective of musically diverse artists who work and collaborate at Reykjavik’s Greenhouse Studios. She has also lent her sound to recording and concert projects by such popular artists as The National, David Bowie and Björk. 

Nadia is a member of the acclaimed chamber sextet yMusic, whose virtuosic execution and unique configuration have attracted high profile collaborators including Paul Simon, Ben Folds and Anohni. Their ever-expanding repertoire features original works by prominent composers including Andrew Norman, Caroline Shaw, and Chris Thile. 

Nadia is co-founder of Eclipse Projects, an independent creative producer and arts management company based in Los Angeles. She received a Peabody Award for her podcast Meet the Composer With Nadia Sirota on New York Public Radio’s WQXR/Q2 (2014-17). From 2018 to 2022, she served as the New York Philharmonic’s first Creative Partner. She received her undergraduate and Master’s degrees from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory, and Hsin-Yun Huang. Nadia has been a Juilliard Creative Associate since 2019 and joined the Juilliard faculty in 2023, teaching Chamber Music and Graduate Studies, and becoming the school’s first Creative Associate at Large.

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“She is a relentless commissioner and performer of music, and has brought forth an impressive thicket of it into existence. Her pursuit of new work is as admirable as her tenaciously good ear and her ability to throw herself bodily into the landscapes that composers bring to her. ”
— Pitchfork
“If the ancient and unassuming viola is having a renaissance in contemporary music, it’s thanks largely to Nadia Sirota, who specializes in, well, anything a composer can throw at her.”
— New York Magazine
“No one since Kashkashian has done more to illustrate the viola’s range and potential than Nadia Sirota, mediagenic violist of choice for a generation of eclectic, genre-flouting creators.”
— Time Out