Mendelssohn Magic

Sunday, July 21st
at Westminster Presbyterian Church
1757 N Lake Avenue, Pasadena, CA

On a very warm July evening, Melodia Mariposa presented eight world-class musicians performing Mendelssohn’s Octet and Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins in the beautiful and sonorous surroundings of Westminster Presbyterian Church on Lake Avenue.

We brought together the talents of the renowned Lyris Quartet with our own Melodia Mariposa Quartet and KUSC Los Angeles Radio Host Alan Chapman to perform in a magical free summer concert.

Performers
  • Violins: Alyssa Park, Songa Lee, Ina Veli and Irina Voloshina
  • Violas: Luke Maurer and Erik Rynearson
  • Cellos: Timothy Loo and Giovanna Moraga-Clayton

Our Performers

Alan Chapman, radio host

Alan Chapman is an educator, radio host (Classical KUSC, Los Angeles), composer/lyricist, and pianist. After receiving his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he earned a Ph.D. in music theory from Yale University. He was a longtime faculty member at Occidental College and is currently a member of the music theory faculty of the Colburn Conservatory.

Well-known as a pre-concert lecturer, Dr. Chapman has been a regular speaker on the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Upbeat Live series since its inception in 1984 and developed the popular series of “Music 101” multimedia evenings at Walt Disney Concert Hall. He also works closely with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Pacific Symphony.

Dr. Chapman’s songs have been performed and recorded by many artists around the world. His children’s opera Les Moose: The Operatic Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle was commissioned by Los Angeles Opera. Peter and Mr. Wolf is the story of an eighth grader’s tribulations in finding a science project, which was premiered by Chamber Music Palisades with Dr. Chapman as narrator. He is much in demand as a creator of original musical material for special events.

Alyssa Park, violin

Alyssa Park established an enviable international reputation at age sixteen for being the youngest prizewinner in the history of the Tchaikovsky International Competition. Ms. Park has made numerous recital and orchestral appearances since her professional debut at age eleven with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. Her New York City debut recital at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall was critically acclaimed by The New York Times for “an unusually strong technique and a youthful sense of music making.” Other notable credits include the Ravinia Festival Series, Kennedy Center Recital Series, Oregon Bach Festival, and Rockefeller University in New York City.

As a soloist, Ms. Park has concertized extensively throughout Europe. She has performed with Sir Colin Davis and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra as well as appearances with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and the Czech Philharmonic. Her performance with the Austrian Radio Symphony at Vienna’s Musikverein was featured in a live radio and television broadcast throughout Europe. Ms.Park has toured Germany with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Barcelona Orchestra, Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Hamburg Philharmonic, and to Spain, Switzerland, and Austria with the Cincinnati Symphony. She also appeared as a soloist with the orchestras of Sydney, Adelaide, and Tasmania, Australia.

Ms. Park’s recent seasons included performances in Asia with the Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Japan Philharmonic, and the Singapore Symphony. She was also featured with the Berlin Radio Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Lisbon Symphony, Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie, and Munich Philharmonic. She also made her debut at Italy’s Ravello Festival and Holland’s Royal Concertgebouw.

An avid chamber musician as well, Ms. Park has been a frequent guest at major festivals including Ludwisburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Weilburg, Passau, Frankfurt, Montpellier, France, Brahms festival in Madrid, Beethoven Festival in Bonn, Prague Summer Festival, and Oregon Festival of American Music. She has been on tours with Martha Argerich, Boris Pergamenchikov, Billy Childs, Louis Lortie, and Soovin Kim just to name a few.
Ms. Park is also a founding member of the Lyris Quartet which is based in Los Angeles. Lyris curates the “Hear Now” new music festival which is dedicated to performing the works of living Southern California composers. The quartet is also the resident quartet for the highly acclaimed Jacaranda music series in Santa Monica.

Lyris has collaborated closely with composers Krystof Penderecki, Andrew Norman, Oliver Knussen, Steven Mackey, John Adams, Bruce Broughton, Peter Knell, Kurt Rohde, Paquito D’Rivera, Wadada Leo Smith, Gerard Schurmann, and James Newton. They’ve performed as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series, been featured at the Hollywood Bowl, and will make their debut with the Los Angeles Master Chorale this season.

Ms. Park’s recordings can be found on Albany Records, Toccata Classics, ARS, and Naxos.

Songa Lee, violin

Violinist Songa Lee has established herself as one of the most prolific and sought after studio musicians in Los Angeles. She has contributed to the soundtracks and musical scores of hundreds of movies, television shows and albums, and has performed multiple times on the Academy Awards, Grammy and Emmy telecasts. 

Born in Korea, Songa’s family moved to England when she was just three months old. She began playing the violin at the age of six and the following year was awarded a full scholarship to attend Chetham’s School of Music, a prestigious boarding school for gifted young musicians, where she remained until she was sixteen. After a successful recital debut at the South Bank Centre in London, Songa signed with Encore Concerts Limited, and came to the United States as part of the British Virtuosi. A scholarship to USC brought Songa to Los Angeles, where she received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees under the tutelage of renowned pedagogue Robert Lipsett. 

Ms. Lee was involved in various music festivals such as Sarasota, the Schleswig-Holstein Masterclass Series, and a residency at the Banff Centre, and also toured England and Canada with the late Canadian pianist Guy Lalime.  After receiving numerous awards and grants for performances in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, in 1998 Songa returned to Korea for the first time as part of a festival honoring Korean musicians living abroad. There she performed live on national television and radio as soloist with the KBS Orchestra at the Seoul Arts Center.  Ms. Lee was also part of an esteemed commission to perform at Carnegie Hall with her sister, cellist Su-a Lee and pianist Louise Thomas.

Ms. Lee currently resides in the Los Angeles area where she enjoys the diversity of regular recording session work, live solo and chamber music performances on California’s central coast, and varied orchestral engagements.  

Ina Veli, violin

Ina Veli was born and raised in Albania in a family of musicians. At 5 years old, Ina began studying violin in her hometown of Fier. By age 13, Ina began touring throughout Europe, winning multiple competitions and performing recitals in Hungary, Italy and Albania. In 1999, she moved to the United States where she completed her undergraduate degree in Violin Performance from the University of Oklahoma. She later received her Masters degree from the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music.

Ina is based in Los Angeles and serves as Assistant Concertmaster for the Santa Barbara Symphony, Principal Second for the New West Symphony and performs regularly with the Los Angeles Opera. Ina is also active in the recording industry and has recorded with the likes of John Williams, Danny Elfman, John Powell, Barbara Streisand, Beyoncé and Barry Manilow. 

Outside of the music world, Ina enjoys hiking, dining, gardening with her partner Erik and visiting her relatives in Europe any chance she gets. 

Irina Voloshina, violin

Born in Odesa, Ukraine, Irina Voloshina had her first violin lesson at 6 years old. She studied at the Odessa Music School, the famous institution founded by Professor Stolyarsky early in the 20th century that brought to the world some of the greatest violin masters, such as Nathan Milstein and David Oistrakh. From there, Irina advanced into Odessa State Conservatory.

Graduated from the Conservatory with a master’s degree in Violin Performance and Pedagogy, Voloshina played in the Odessa Philharmonic for nine years.

Since moving to Southern California in 1993, Irina has appeared in recitals, chamber music groups, and orchestras such as Pasadena Symphony and Pops, Los Angeles Opera, California Philharmonic, and Hollywood Bowl orchestras.

She has performed in over 600 film scores including those by John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, and Hans Zimmer, to name a few. She performed for “American Idol” and the “MTV Music Awards” and was a member of the Academy Awards orchestra. LA Times has described her playing as “a showcase of brilliant virtuosity.”

During the pandemic, Irina founded the “Melodia Mariposa” music series performing on the driveway of her Altadena home, presenting over 65 free public concerts. On July 24, 2021, she was named Volunteer of the Year and received the Congressional Leadership Awards: Hometown Heroes of the Pandemic in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the People of the 27th Congressional District from Congresswoman Judy Chu.

On December 21, 2022, Kathryn Barger, Supervisor of the 5th District of the County of Los Angeles awarded Irina and Melodia Mariposa with a commendation certificate in recognition of their dedicated service to the affairs of the community and for the civic pride demonstrated by numerous contributions for the benefit of all the residents of Los Angeles County.

Luke Maurer, violin

Violist Luke Maurer, a native of Santa Barbara, California, has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia as a chamber and orchestral musician. Maurer was a member of the Pacific Symphony for over a decade and performs regularly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has also served as guest principal violist with Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan.
Maurer is the violist of the Lyris Quartet, resident ensemble of the critically acclaimed series Jacaranda: Music at the Edge. Lyris is also the founding resident ensemble of the Hear Now Music Festival, which focuses on the music of living Los Angeles composers. The quartet has recorded for Toccata Classics, ARS and Naxos.

Erik Rynearson, viola

Native of Los Angeles, Erik Rynearson has been performing music since the age of three.  Now at age forty-three he enjoys leading the viola sections of the Los Angeles Opera Company, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, the Pacific Jazz Orchestra, and the Santa Barbara Symphony. Erik is in great demand as a freelance recording artist, working with among others Aretha Franklin, John Williams and the Blue Man Group. Occasionally, Erik is featured as a solo horn player in his car.

Musically, Rynearson devoured Haydn, Beethoven and Brubeck in childhood and currently hungers for the sounds of Zemlinsky, Korngold and Charlie Parker.  He owes his musical preparedness to his teachers including his father Paul, Miwako Watanabe, Franco Gulli, Ilya Kaler and Henryk Kowalski. 

Highlights so far of the ’23-24 season include recording for Barbra Streisand and performing with Rufus Wainwright.

Off-stage, Erik enjoys spending time reading, swimming, and learning more about the alto Sax. He plays a Danish viola made by Carl Mettus Weis in 1845. 

Timothy Loo, cello

Timothy Loo, moved to Los Angeles in 1992 to study cello performance at California State University at Northridge and the University of Southern California. Timothy is a member of the Lyris Quartet, founded in 2008.  This quartet is the resident ensemble at both Jacaranda and Hear Now Festivals and has been featured numerous times on the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella and Noon 2 Midnight series at The Walt Disney Concert Hall.
In January 2018, Mr. Loo made his concerto debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at The Walt Disney Concert Hall performing the fiendishly difficult Concerto for Cello and Orchestra by Bernt Zimmermann, under the direction of conductor Susanna Mälkki.

Timothy has also performed on over 1000 motion pictures, TV shows, albums, commercials, award shows, including yearly at the Academy Award

Timothy is also one of the foremost music contractors in Los Angeles.  Most recently he assembled the orchestra for composer John Williams for the scoring of Indiana Jones 5: The Dial of Destiny, ESPN College Football Playoffs, The Fablemans and Obi Wan Kenobi.  Mr. Loo is also the music contractor for James Newton Howard, Mike Post, Jeff Russo, Branford Marsalis, Disney’s Launchpad streaming series, The Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, just to name a few.

In 2019, Timothy and his husband Tommy Johnson purchased Sabron Payroll Services and act as CFO and CEO respectively. Sabron is a leading payroll company in the entertainment industry that has built strong relationships with major production companies such as Disney, Netflix, MGM, Paramount, LucasFilm, and Apple.
Sabron has a 30-year legacy as a boutique payroll company that helps production companies or composers to navigate the complex music contracts of the American Federation of Musicians, SAG-AFTRA, and IATSE.

Giovanna Clayton, cello

Giovanna holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from UCLA in music performance and was a featured artist with her quartet in the prestigious Royce Hall music series. Since graduating, Giovanna has had the opportunity to work with world-renowned artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Pinchas Zukerman, Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, János Starker and Sir Neville Marriner, among others. Upon her return from an eight-month fellowship with the Chicago Symphony, Giovanna won positions with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (2004), Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the New West and Santa Barbara symphonies.

Giovanna is a familiar face in the Hollywood music scene, performing live and recording with artists such as Andrea Bocelli, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, James Brown, Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, Mary J. Blige, Stevie Wonder and more. Keeping a busy recording schedule, Giovanna has played on dozens of jingles, movie trailers and blockbusters, such as X-Men (2000),  Spider-man (2002), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), Rocky Balboa (2006), Horton Hears a Who! (2008), The Tale of Despereaux (2008), Mall Cop (2009) and many more. Her television credits include American Idol; Felicity; The Tonight Show; the AMA, Billboard, Grammy, Soul Train, Lady of Soul and Academy awards; a GMC truck commercial and a voice over for Lifetime’s Television for Women. A versatile artist, Giovanna has scored a short film, is finishing up her first instrumental album and is in production on her debut artist project.

Giovanna lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

This Event was Generously Sponsored by