PORT ANGELES — No one was surprised when violist Lauren Waldron, a senior at Port Angeles High School, earned the top prize in a national viola competition.

James Ray, orchestra teacher at Port Angeles High School said Waldron plays so musically and at such a high level that he wasn’t surprised when she told him she had earned the National Federation of Music Clubs’ Wendell Irish Viola Award recently.

“Impressed just doesn’t begin to cover it, but at the same time, I’m not surprised,” he said. “She’s not just a good viola player, but an artist.”

Violas — which are often confused with violins — are slightly larger than their higher-pitched cousins and can produce richer tones.

Ray takes no credit for Waldron’s accomplishment, though he has watched her grow as a musician while working as a strings teacher in the Port Angeles School District.

This is his first year having Waldron as a student. He said her award is based only on her solo work.

“In a way I’m kind of like another person in the cheering squad like everyone else, watching her make all these incredible accomplishments,” Ray said.

The only person who was surprised was Waldron — she said this week that she didn’t expect to win the national award.

Waldron, who is in her ninth year as a violist, was required to record her audition of two pieces and first compete at the state level. Once she earned the top prize in the state, her audition was forwarded to the national level, where she won again.

“Being from Port Angeles you don’t really expect to win a national award,” she said. “It’s almost surreal, I just didn’t expect it at all.”

For her audition, she performed the prelude from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor and the first movement from Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata.

They are two pieces she has known she wanted to perform. She’s been wanting to play the sonata for about a year and has been working on it during private lessons she takes with Joyce Ramee, an affiliate artist at University of Puget Sound.

“It’s just this huge piece,” she said. “It’s really hard and has pushed me technically to better my skills. The emotions that come with it are really present when you get to know it.”

She also felt compelled to perform the Bach.

“Bach is Bach,” she said. “You have to do Bach.”

Those two pieces earned her $1,250, which she plans to use to help her pay for college. She has been accepted to five universities across the Pacific Northwest and is now deciding which music program she wants to join.

Waldron has been accepted to the College of Idaho, University of Oregon, Central Washington University, Pacific Lutheran University and Washington State University. She applied for a conservatory but hasn’t yet heard back.

“I’m leaning toward College of Idaho, Central or PLU,” she said. “[Having so many options] makes it harder to choose that’s for sure. They’re all giving me pretty good scholarships.”

She said she needs to look at which schools will give her the best scholarships and which program she likes the best.

Waldron has played viola since she was in fourth grade — when the school district first introduces students to stringed instruments.

With viola “You get the best of both worlds,” she said. “You can play the higher end of the orchestral parts, or you can get the deeper end — a really chocolatey kind of sound. It’s a really unique, imperfect sound that I like.”

She performs with the Port Angeles High School Symphonic Orchestra, PAHS Chamber Orchestra, the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra and other groups in the area.

Phil Morgan-Ellis, one of her private viola teachers, said when he first saw her play as a fourth- and fifth-grade student several years ago, he knew he wanted to work with Waldron.

“She had such poise and such control and such good intonation, I knew I wanted to work with her,” he said.

Morgan-Ellis said he wasn’t surprised to learn last week she had won the award, but he had no idea she had even auditioned for it in the first place.

Morgan-Ellis said that though he has worked with Waldron for most of her viola career, he has now become a “second fiddle” teacher to Ramee, Waldron’s teacher at UPS.

“It’s so rewarding as a teacher to see students grow beyond you,” he said. “I’m very proud of her. I know we’ll see her as a soloist back at the [Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra]. I’m sure of it.”

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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsuladailynews.com.

Lauren Waldron, a senior at Port Angeles High School, practices her viola during lunch Monday. She recently learned she had earned the National Federation of Music Clubs’ Wendell Irish Viola Award. (Jesse Major/Peninsula Daily News)