The Lyris Quartet is a Los Angeles based string quartet. Its members are Alyssa Park (Violin), Shalini Vijayan (Violin), Luke Maurer (Viola), and Timothy Loo (Cello). Although formally founded in 2008, this group of musicians and friends has collaborated together for many years. They have performed at most of the prestigious chamber music venues at Los Angeles include the Bina theater at Los Angeles County Museum Of Art, Broad Stage, Zipper hall, Rayce Hall, Jacaranga, and Disney Hall. Blessed to be all leaving in Los Angeles, this quartet bring its maturity, experience, and love of chamber music together to focus on the vast and exciting quartet repertoire.

This season the Lyris Quartet will be featured at the Long Beach Opera as well as the South Bay Chamber Music Series, and Sunday Live at LACMA. They will be heard live on KUSC 91.5 and KPDK 90.7. They also made their debut in Spain last fall.

ALYSSA PARK
Violin

Violinist Alyssa Park established an enviable international reputation in 1990 as the youngest prizewinner in the history of the Tchaikovsky International Competition. In addition to earning the bronze medal, she was honored by the jury for being "the most promising talent ...the most artistic performer ...the most interesting personality" and for displaying "the best mastery of the instrument." At the time, Alyssa Park was sixteen. Since her professional debut, at age eleven, with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Alyssa Park has made numerous recital and orchestral appearances in this country. The New York Times critically acclaimed her New York City debut, in 1991, at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall for delivering "an unusually strong technique and a youthful sense of music making." Other notable recital credits include the Ravinia Festival's Rising Star Series, the Kennedy Center Recital Series, the Oregon Bach Festival, and recitals at Rockefeller University in New York City. She has also performed with the Florida West Coast Symphony and with numerous municipal and regional orchestras, including appearances in Cincinnati, OH; Louisville, KY; San Jose, CA; Austin, Tex.; Knoxville, TN; Annapolis, MD; and New Orleans, LA.

Ms. Park also performs extensively throughout Europe. She made her European debut, in 1991, with Sir Colin Davis and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Soon after, she made appearances with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra (with Jesus Lopez-Cobos), the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and the Czech Philharmonic conducted by Gerd Albrecht. 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 and the Czech Philharmonic, and has performed in Spain, Switzerland, and Austria with the Cincinnati Symphony. A highlight of Ms. Park's previous season was the premiere performance, in Poland, of Krzysztof Penderecki's second violin concerto, with the Polish Radio Orchestra conducted by the composer. She has also appeared as guest soloist with major Australian orchestras in Sydney, Adelaide, and Tasmania, as well as the Barcelona Orchestra with Vladimir Fedoseyev; the Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk at the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Marcello Viotti; and with the Hamburg Philharmonic.

In the fall of 1996, Ms. Park joined the Czech Philharmonic on their 17-city tour of the United States, giving concerts at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, and performances in other East Coast cities, including West Palm Beach, FL; Charlotte, NC; Wilmington, DE; and Amherst, MA.

Ms. Park's 1997-98 season featured performances in Asia with the Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Japan Philharmonic, the Singapore Symphony, the Berlin Radio Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Lisbon Symphony, and the Munich Philharmonic. She also made her debut this season at Italy's Ravello Festival and Holland's Royal Concertgebouw.

Alyssa Park is a frequent guest at major festivals in Germany, including Ludwigsburg and SchleswigHolstein, where she has played chamber music with Martha Argerich. In the summer of 1995, Ms. Park performed five concerts with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, conducted by Helmut Rilling. She has also appeared at the Weilburg, Passau, and Frankfurt summer festivals, and at other leading international music festivals, including Montpellier, France, and the Brahms Festival in Madrid.

Ms. Park was a student at the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music, studying under Kurt Sassmanshaus and Dorothy DeLay. She was a winner of the Aspen Music Festival's concerto competition, in 1988, and returned there to teach in 1996. She now resides in Los Angeles, with part-time teaching responsibilities at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

SHALINI VIJAYAN
Violin

A native of California, Shalini Vijayan studied in New York as a scholarship student at the Manhattan School of Music where she received her B.M. and M.M. degrees under the tutelage of Ariana Bronne and Lucie Robert.
Always an advocate for modern music, Shalini was a founding member and is Principal Second Violin of Absolute Ensemble, having recorded several albums with them including 2001 Grammy nominee, Absolution. As a part of Absolute, she has performed throughout the United States and Europe, most notably in London's Barbican Hall and the Konzerthaus in Vienna.

In Los Angeles, Shalini is featured regularly with Grammy Award winning Southwest Chamber Music and can be heard on their Complete Chamber Works of Carlos Chávez, Vol. 3.

Currently, she is a member of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra as well as Principal Second Violin of the Opera Pacific Orchestra. She has been on the faculty of the Sequoia Chamber Music Workshop in Arcata, California since 2003.

LUKE MAURER
Viola

Violist Luke Maurer, a native of Santa Barbara, California, began his musical studies on the violin with his father. He received his B.M. and M.M. degrees in viola performance from the University of Southern California studying with Donald McInnes and Ralph Fielding.

He performs extensively throughout Southern California as an orchestral and chamber musician. He is a member of the Pacific Symphony and performs regularly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. As a chamber musician, Mr. Maurer has performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan. During the summer of 2003, he performed a series of string quartet concerts in Slovenia and France as a member of the Tetraktys Quartet. From 2005-2006, he appeared in concert with Midori at Walt Disney Concert Hall and Alfred Newman Recital Hall, presenting works of Schubert, Dvorak and Lutoslawski. Mr. Maurer was also a featured artist during the Pacific Symphony's American Composers Festival in 2007.

TIMOTHY LOO
Cello

Timothy Loo, “a commanding young cellist who contributed to a fervent performance of Tchaikowsky’s Rococo Variations…”Alan Rich, LA Weekly, currently resides in Los Angeles. He is a co-founder and principal cellist of Mladi, LA’s conductorless chamber orchestra. Timothy also performs with New West Symphony, Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and the California Ear Unit. Timothy has participated in master classes with Joel Krosnick, Andrew Shulman, Bernhard Greenhouse and David Geringas at the Leonard Rose Competition, Ronald Leonard, Tsyoshi Tsutsumi, the Vermeer Quartet and the Juilliard Quartet.
Timothy's orchestral training began in 1992 with the American Youth Symphony and Young Musician's Foundation Debut Orchestra. In 1998, Timothy won a position in the Philharmonie der Nationen in Hamburg, Germany. In 2000 Timothy was awarded an Advanced Studies Certificate with Ronald Leonard at the USC Thornton School of Music. Timothy has studied with Barbara Wirth, Rowena Hammill, Andrew Cook, Hans Jorgen Jensen, and Ronald Leonard.