Meena Bhasin, viola

Meena Bhasin is an alluring violist and entrepreneur whose identity has never fit neatly into a box. Born in New York to an Iranian Jewish mother and a Punjabi Sikh father, her early life was filled with an insatiable passion for cross-cultural dialogue and an itch for interdisciplinary learning. She started honing her musical skills at the age of four. Through experiences as an adolescent performing and collaborating in places like Japan, Israel, China, and at the United Nations, she realized what a powerful connecting force music could be in the world. This realization has affected every artistic choice she has made since. 

Meena is a co-founder of Decoda, the affiliate ensemble of Carnegie Hall, a co-artistic director of Noe Valley Chamber Music, and is a member of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. She makes regular appearances with the San Francisco Symphony, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Boston-based chamber orchestra, A Far Cry. She relishes collaborations across genres and has toured the US as a soloist with legendary rock band Jethro Tull and performed Persian music as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic. Her chamber music collaborators have included Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Emanuel Ax, and Joyce DiDinato. As part of her training, Meena was in Ensemble Connect, the post-graduate leadership program of Carnegie Hall and the Juilliard School. Prior to that, she graduated as a Presser scholar from New England Conservatory and also holds a BA in international relations from Tufts University.