On September 26th, Altadena Library played host to the first Melodia Mariposa Lecture in our new series. This is an exciting new expansion of the Melodia Mariposa brand and offering and we were really honored that the Director of the LA Opera was our first presenter.

Maestro Conlon is one of the most talented and experienced conductors in the world with an extraordinary career spanning decades, genres and countries. His talk focussed on the role of the conductor through history and he dispelled conductor myths that have developed over the years in an extremely engaging and entertaining way – even teaching the audience how to wield a baton!

Melodia Mariposa is delighted to have Maestro Conlon as one of our own alumni now, and hope he will return to Altadena in future. In fact, the very next night, September 27th, he conducted the LA Opera’s production of West Side Story which was telecast in Loma Alta Park for an enthralled open air audience of Altadenans amidst one of the worst burn areas of our town.