Miya Saito-Beckman, a native Oregonian, earned both a BM and an MM in Violin Performance/Pedagogy from the University of Oregon. Miya has been a featured soloist with the Sunriver Music Festival Orchestra and the Central Oregon Symphony, and has performed around the United States and Europe as a classical violinist. Also a passionate fiddler, she is a four-time finalist at the National Fiddling Championship and is also the four-time Oregon State Fiddle Champion.
Miya has studied and collaborated with members of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble while attending the Global Musician Workshop and has been a
recipient of the Oregon Music Hall of Fame Scholarship and the American String Teacher Association (ASTA) Alternative Strings Award. Her students have won state and national titles in competitions around the country. She has performed alongside musicians Darol Anger, Abigail Washburn, Bruce Molsky, Roy “Futureman” Wooten and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (A Tribe Called Quest).
Currently, she sits on the faculty at the Bronx Conservatory of Music, the Hochstein School of Music, and ROCmusic while maintaining a private studio. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Redfish Chamber Music Festival and is the Festival Manager for the non-profit organization. In her free-time, Miya loves watching soccer, cooking, and exploring outdoors with her husband, orchestral conductor and violinist, Nicholas Sharma and their Border Collie, Hudson.