Violin & Viola

Ishani is an acclaimed violinist, in demand as performer and educator in both the UK and the USA. Born and raised in Bristol, UK, Ishani studied at the Purcell School of Music and the Guildhall School of Music winning numerous prizes and awards, including first prize in the 5th Sascha Lasserson Competition. Ishani gave her debut solo recital at the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank.

Ishani has been a member of several international orchestras, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra in the UK, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles Opera in the US. In 2011 Ishani established the Waverley Ensemble bringing Baroque Music to a wider audience.

Acclaimed throughout the music world as not just a performer, but an “artiste”, violinist Roberto Cani has continued to bring his art to the highest of levels, captivating and delighting audiences in the United States and abroad, since his solo debut at the Gaveau Hall in Paris.

Beginning his studies at the age of seven, Mr. Cani has been a first and grand prize winner of numerous competitions, including the Paganini International Competition in Genoa, the Courcillon International Competition, and the Jeunesses Musicales International Competition in Belgrade, where he also captured a special award for the best performance of a contemporary work. In addition, he has been the winner of the Minetti Prize and received honors at the Tchaikovsky Competition.

Throughout his successful career as soloist, chamber musician and concertmaster, he has established himself as a versatile and respected artist worldwide.

Mr. Cani has performed throughout the United States as well as in Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, Russia, Croatia, Belgium, Poland, Serbia, France, Taiwan, Japan and South Africa. He has appeared as soloist with the Moscow Philharmonic, the RAI Symphony (Italy), the Belgrade Philharmonic, Zagreb Soloists, Orchestra Haydn of Bolzano, the American Youth Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Missouri Chamber Orchestra and Symphony of the Americas.

Mr. Cani has performed as guest concertmaster for the La Scala Philharmonic in Milan under the baton of Riccardo Muti. He was also invited by Vladimir Jurowski to be a guest concertmaster for the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mr. Cani has been appointed Concertmaster of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra in May 2011. As concertmaster of Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, Mr. Cani is closely working with Placido Domingo and James Conlon among others.

Mr. Cani has given master classes at many California Universities, among them those at the University of Southern California (USC), the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA),s as well as playing and teaching at Summer Music Festivals in Positano, Italy and Hvar, Croatia, Music Festival in Prague.

Mr. Cani is a graduate of the Milan Conservatory, the Gnessin Institute in Moscow, and the University of Southern California. He has studied with world-renowned violinists Viktor Tretiakov and Abrahm Shtern.

Currently, principal 2nd violin of the Los Ageless Opera Orchestra, Ana Landauer has been with the company since 2001. At age six, she began her violin studies at the Tchaikovsky Academy of Music and was a winner of several national violin competitions in her native Armenia. Ana made her debut with the State Philharmonic Orchestra of Armenia at 14 and has performed since then in major halls throughout Armenia. In the United States, she attended Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, completing her Artist Diploma program and later studied with renowned violin professor Robert Lipsett at the University of Southern California earning her Advanced Studies Diploma. Winner of the Elizabeth Harper Vaughn International Competition in Tennessee Ana has also appeared in the Tanglewood Music Festival, the Shady Side Music Festival, the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, and served as Concermistress and Guest Soloist for the National Repertory Orchestra in Colorado. She has performed with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Mozart Camerata, and has been often heard on Classical 105.1 FM. Ana Landauer is an active chamber musician in the greater Los Angeles area.

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.  

A native of Texas, Shawn Mann is a long-standing member of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, and can be seen around town playing with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and the Pasadena Symphony and Pops, and was recently a featured soloist with Pasadena-based chamber orchestra MUSE/IQUE. He is also an active studio musician, having played on hundreds of motion picture soundtrack scores for composers such as John Williams, James Horner and Danny Elfman, and recordings with artists such as Barbra Streisand, Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban.

Shawn has traveled the length and breadth of Japan as Principal Viola of the Percy Faith Orchestra, and performed with the Pacific Symphony on their critically acclaimed tour of Germany and Austria. He has performed at Festival Mozaic, the Aspen Music Festival, the Taos School of Music, Colorado Music Festival and the Music Academy of the West.

Shawn holds degrees from the Interlochen Arts Academy, the Eastman School of Music and the University of Southern California. His teachers have included Yizhak Schotten, David Holland, John Graham and Donald McInnes.

When not playing the viola, Shawn can often be found restoring his 1970 TriumphTR6 or deciding which house project to tackle next.

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.

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.

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. 

Violist Colleen Sugata is a member of the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, the New West Symphony, and is an active Hollywood studio musician.

Prior to moving to Southern California, Colleen performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony for three seasons. She has been on numerous tours with the Pittsburgh Symphony, including performances at Carnegie Hall in 2008 and 2009, and their extensive European tour in 2010 which resulted in the recording of the Brahms Symphonies. She has attended such prestigious music festivals as Music at Menlo and the Aspen Music Festival.

Colleen received both her BM and MM degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music as a scholarship student of Professor Jeffrey Irvine and Lynne Ramsey. She has studied French and Chinese, and uses both languages in her musical travels. Colleen and her husband live with their two kids and rescue dog. Her family loves to travel and spent time in Sweden during 2022 and will be visiting Japan in 2023. Colleen is also an avid seamstress and makes most of her clothes.

Ashlee Sung is a 16-year-old violinist who studies with Sharon Harman at Pasadena Conservatory of Music and is a junior at Arcadia High School. She has been playing the violin for 13 years, having won multiple competitions in 2021, including the first round of the 2021 Pasadena Rotary Club Dan Stover Rotary Music Competition. She is currently the concertmistress of the Pasadena Youth Philharmonic. Aside from playing the violin, Ashlee also enjoys tutoring younger violin students and composing music. She sees music as a comforting outlet where people can release their emotions in a positive way; in other words, music and mental health have a strong correlation that can be further explored at Ashlee’s website.

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. 

A native of Los Angeles, violinist Roger Wilkie began his violin studies at age 13. Eight years later, he joined the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra as one of its youngest members, eventually being appointed principal second violin. In 1990, Roger was appointed concertmaster of the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, a position he holds to this day. He is also currently concertmaster of the Los Angeles Master Chorale Orchestra. A frequent soloist with the Long Beach Symphony, he has been featured in performances of the majority of the standard violin concerto repertoire.

Roger is a much sought after soloist and chamber musician. He was a founding member of the Angeles String Quartet, performing and touring from 1988-1993. He was solo violinist with the Santa Barbara based Camerata Pacifica, on whose series he played hundreds of concerts as recitalist and chamber musician. Roger has recorded and toured extensively as a member of the critically acclaimed Pacific Trio, including a performance at the Silver Lire International Festival of Chamber Music in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has participated in the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, and the Mainly Mozart Festival. He is a frequent performer with the Music Guild of Los Angeles, the South Bay Chamber Music Society, and many others. In January 2023, Roger was invited by L. A. Opera Music Director James Conlon to serve as guest associate concertmaster with the Baltimore Symphony for performances
of the Verdi Requiem.

In great demand as a concertmaster for the Hollywood studio orchestras, Roger has served in that capacity for many of Hollywood’s leading composers. Since 2005, he has had the honor of serving as concertmaster for the motion picture scores of legendary composer John Williams, including the last three episodes of the Star Wars franchise, The Fabelmans, and the soon to be released Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

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Brennan Wuchner started playing the violin at the age of five. In 2019 he began studying with Aimee Kreston, and since then, he has enjoyed performing in a variety of recitals and concerts at the Colburn Community School. A favorite violin experience occurred in 2021 when he was chosen to perform Vivaldi’s Spring Concerto with the Pacific Academy Foundation Orchestra (PAFO).

In 2022, he had the opportunity to develop further through participation in the Colburn Chamber Music Intensive. Last year he also received his first paid “gig,” playing in the pit orchestra for the Fine Arts Network Theater Company. Additionally, he was the first-place winner in the Southern California Bach Festival Complete Works Audition 2022. He is currently Assistant Concert Master in both PAFO and the Temecula Valley Youth Symphony.

Upcoming plans include performing the Vivaldi “Summer” Concerto with the Eastern Sierra Symphony and the Kabalevsky Violin Concerto with PAFO later this summer. His summer plans also include attending the Pasadena Conservatory Intensive and the Idyllwild Arts Chamber Music Intensive, for which he received a full scholarship. His other hobbies include playing chess, fishing, and flying his RC planes.