Lisa Yoshida is a violinist, composer, and educator in Orange County, CA, and a PhD student in the Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology program at University of California Irvine.

She is passionate about contemporary music, and has participated in Domaine Forget Music Festival’s New Music Program, Nief-Norf’s Composer-Performer-Improvisor summit, and the Darmstadt Summer Courses’ Violin Studio. Through her interests in playing contemporary music, she started composing in 2020. Her composition for solo violin and electronics titled Finally Alone (2021) has been selected as a Finalist and in the Top 10 for Black House Collective’s 2021 Soloist Competition.

She is actively private teaching in Irvine, and her students have won auditions into local youth orchestras, including the IUSD Honors Orchestras and All-Southern Orchestras. Lisa has served as the 1st violin coach at Wildwood Music Institute in San Bernardino, CA in 2019 and 2022.

In June 2022, she served as the tour coordinator for violinist Midori’s NPO Music Sharing - International Community Engagement Tour; visiting 17 facilities in seven prefectures for two weeks in Japan. The organization brings live classical music to populations who have little or no access to attend traditional concert halls. Lisa continues to support Midori’s other NPOs mainly through content creating. In 2023, she spent the summer at Pacific Music Festival to work as their Assistant Orchestra Manager.

A graduate from California State University Long Beach with a Masters of Music in Violin Performance, she studied under Moni Simeonov and was the Strings Graduate Student Assistant and a member of the CSULB University String Quartet. Lisa has a Bachelor of Music degree in Violin Performance and a French minor from Chapman University, where she studied with Prof. William Fitzpatrick. 

Outside of music, she enjoys rock climbing and watching baseball!

Publication:

“The Audio-Visual Experience in Natacha Diels's Nightmare for JACK” on ProQuest