Megan Karls
VIOLIN
Megan Karls loves making her home in Montana, where she performs as co-concertmaster of the Great Falls Symphony and with the Cascade Quartet.
She also serves as associate concertmaster of the Billings Symphony and frequently as guest concertmaster for the Bozeman, Billings, and Butte Symphonies, Intermountain Opera Company, and String Orchestra of the Rockies.
Megan is the first woman in classical music to be awarded the Montana Arts Council’s Artist Innovation Award, for her debut video album entitled “Decommissioned: Solo Violin in Cold War Relics,” filmed live in military structures across Montana.
She has recently appeared as soloist with the Milwaukee Philharmonic and Great Falls Symphony, and as a chamber musician, Megan has been a guest artist across the nation, including Oberlin Conservatory, Lawrence University, Northern Illinois University, Roundtop, and the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the US.
She spends her summers with the Britt Music Festival, McCall Music Festival, Assisi Performing Arts in Italy, and has traveled to El Salvador as a Teaching Artist and toured Bulgaria in 2021 with Symphony Vratsa.
Megan maintains a beloved studio of young violinists in Great Falls and Billings, and in 2015 received the Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award on behalf of the Great Falls Symphony and Public Schools collaborative partnership.
Megan is grateful to her mentors from Lawrence University and the University of Iowa, where she holds degrees with honors in Violin Performance and Political Science.
When she's not holding a violin, Megan loves gardening, cheering for the Green Bay Packers, and most importantly, adventuring with her husband and fellow artist, David Raba.