Composer and violist Jonah Sirota is a new breed of multi-talented musician. Equally at home scoring for screen, writing concert music, and performing as soloist and chamber musician, Jonah creates and recreates vivid music for a wide variety of audiences.  His debut solo recording STRONG SAD, a 2018 National Sawdust Tracks release, features premieres of new elegies for the viola by Nico Muhly, Paola Prestini, Arthur Joseph McCaffrey, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Robert Sirota, Kurt Knecht, and Jonah himself. His soundtrack for the public television web documentary Return of the American Bison was nominated for a 2019 regional Emmy™ award. Jonah was the violist of the recently-disbanded Chiara String Quartet for all of its 18 years. With the Chiara Quartet, he toured internationally, recorded seven albums and played in numerous major venues worldwide, and was honored with a Grammy™ nomination (2011, Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Jefferson Friedman's 3rd String Quartet on the New Amsterdam label). In the 2015-2016 season, the group was in residence at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, a venue to which the group returned for their farewell New York concert in May of 2018. As a concert violist, Jonah performs with pianist Molly Morkoski, with organist Kurt Knecht as the improv duo Mondegreen, and as a member of the revived California String Quartet.  He is sought after as a Hollywood session player and regularly plays with major orchestras, including the Long Beach Symphony, where he is Assistant Principal Viola. He lives in South Pasadena, CA.