February 11, 2008
Lyon College News Bureau

Chamber music concert by Mariposa
& Friends coming to Lyon on Feb. 24

Lyon College will host a chamber music concert by Mariposa & Friends at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24.

The Mariposa duo, Sandra McDonald on violin and Linda Holzer on piano, will present a concert in Bevens Music Room featuring music by Dvorak, Robert Schumann and Clara Schumann. Guest musicians include Susan Brummel Belcher, soprano, and Rafael Leon, cello. Admission is free.

Founded in 1998, Mariposa takes its name from the Spanish word for “butterfly.” The duo enjoys exploring standard and adventurous Classical repertoire, with occasional guest artists. The Mariposa duo is on the Arkansas Arts Council Touring Roster.

Dr. Linda Holzer is associate professor of piano at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. She is a founding member of Mariposa with McDonald. An active soloist and chamber musician, Holzer has been heard in concert in more than 20 states, including at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, and New York Public Radio Station WNYC-FM, as well as abroad at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Palffy Palace in Bratislava, Slovakia, and the Landstrasse Gymnasium in Vienna, Austria.

Violinist Sandra McDonald is assistant concertmaster of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. This season will be her 30th in the orchestra. She also performs as first violinist in the Da Capo Quartet. Her teaching career includes maintaining an active studio of both traditional and Suzuki violin students at “Adventures in the Arts,” a fine arts academy run by Pulaski Heights Methodist Church in Little Rock. She was an adjunct instructor of violin at Hendrix College for seven years, and a guest clinician at the Suzuki Institute in Atlanta.

Susan Brummell Belcher‘s career spans opera, music theatre, straight theatre, stage directing, and opera administration. Belcher gained her professional opera training as a young artist with the Chicago Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, where she debuted the role of the angel Zephon in the world premiere of Pendereski's “Paradise Lost.” Since moving to Little Rock, Belcher has appeared as guest soloist with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and with Wildwood Park for the Performing Arts. She has directed four productions of the Wildwood Young Artists Touring Company and two productions for the Wildwood Summer Opera Camp for Young Audiences. She teaches voice and musical theater on the faculty at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock.

Cellist Rafael Leon is in his 23rd year with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and has been the principal cellist for the first 20 years and the later two as section player. His grandfather, Fausto Leon, gave him his first cello lessons. He has performed as a member of the Opera Orchestra of Mexico, the National Symphony of Mexico, the Morelia International Festival, and the Missouri Symphony Society. For seven years, he taught during the summer at the Breckenridge Music Institute in Colorado, where he also performed as a member of the BMI Orchestra and the Blue River Quartet. He has taught on the faculties of Ouachita Baptist University, Hendrix College, and UALR, as well as maintaining a private studio of cello students. Leon has appeared as concerto soloist with the Northeastern Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra.

Mariposa: Sandra McDonald
and Linda Holzer