OPUS OVERNIGHT

String Instrumental Music Camp

August 2 - 8, 2026

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Lydia Miller Choorapuzha is a versatile violinist with a vibrant performance career, having appeared with esteemed ensembles such as the Pittsburgh Symphony and Minnesota Orchestra, as well as artists including Michael Bublé and Bruce Springsteen. A highly regarded chamber musician, she is a member of Trio Sine Nomine, a string trio based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Lydia is a certified Suzuki Violin Teacher and is a member of the prestigious College of Examiners at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Her students have earned National Gold Medal Awards from the RCM, gone on to study at elite conservatories, and secured positions in major U.S. orchestras. In addition to her musical accomplishments, she brings deep business insight to the music education field, coaching studio teachers on achieving financial sustainability. She has shared her expertise at ASTA conferences and in the American String Teacher journal.
A graduate of Boston University and SUNY Purchase, Lydia studied under renowned teachers including Peter Zazofsky, Laurie Smukler, Jorja Fleezanis, and Mimi Zweig.

Kathleen Melucci holds the principal cello chairs at the Pittsburgh Opera and Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh. She has also worked in the cello sections of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Grand Teton Music Festival, and Chautauqua Symphony. In addition to her orchestral endeavors, she is an active chamber musician, clinician, and educator. A sought after cello pedagogue, Kathleen is on the string faculty at Youngstown State University, maintains a thriving private teaching studio, and is a fully trained Suzuki instructor.A native of Pittsburgh, Kathleen was a member of the Three Rivers Young People’s Orchestras (TRYPO) as a student and is now proud to be a part of the Artistic Staff and Strings Co-coordinator for TRYPO’s Youth Chamber Connection (YC2). YC2 is a program unique to the Pittsburgh region and has participants from the majority of public and independent schools in the area. Kathleen works to bring together elementary through high school age young musicians to form chamber ensembles, passing on her love of chamber music study and performance.Kathleen earned her bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music and a master’s degree from the Mannes School of Music studying with Steven Doane and Timothy Eddy. She also studied with renowned artists including Janos Starker, Aldo Parisot, and William Pleeth.

Liza Barley holds a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Music in Music Leadership/Collaborative Composition from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. Her primary teachers in the western classical world include Carolyn Huebl, John Kochanowski (viola), Paul Kantor, and members of the Cavani and Juilliard String Quartet.
In addition to growing up as a Suzuki student of Michele Higa George and being trained and certified in the method, Liza has been teaching Suzuki violin/viola for about 20 years all over the world, including the ten years she spent building and directing a Suzuki program and arts education and performance center in Arusha, Tanzania, East Africa. She is well-known in the Suzuki world and has been a guest clinician at workshops and institutes all over the U.S., Canada, Central America, Europe, Africa, and Japan.
In her performance life, Liza’s time spent outside the U.S. has brought lots of cross-cultural collaborations and work outside the classical genre of violin/viola playing. She has collaborated, learned from, and performed with various artists on projects in Argentina (Tango), Palestine (Arabic classical), the Gambia (Fula, Susu, and Wolof), Kenya and Tanzania (Congolese Highlife, African fusion), India (Carnatic), Greece (Rebetiko), Portugal (Fado), U.K. and U.S. (jazz, bossa nova, fusion, rock, experimental, electronic, devised theater music, and more), and has won awards as a versatile, multi-genre string composer and performer and sound artist.
Liza also spends a lot of time leading collaborative composition workshops. As a practitioner in this area, she has been hired repeatedly by the Baltimore Symphony and the Grand Rapids Symphony to run projects where orchestra musicians collaborate with members of the community to create performances of original work. Liza has collaborated with composers such as Jon Deak at the Kennedy Center Very Young Composers project and other institutions such as the London Symphony Orchestra, London Contemporary Dance School, BBC Studios in London, and countless others as a leader of collaborative composition projects.
In Pittsburgh, she is a long-time teaching artist with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, designing and implementing educational musical experiences in collaboration with different artists and school teachers and is a certified Wolftrap Teaching Artist, through which she works with early childhood teachers to train them in integrating music and creative play into their classroom curricula.