Artists
Musicians
Cellist
Maksim Velichkin
Maksim Velichkin is an accomplished cellist, pianist, and harpsichordist who has been active as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra artist both locally in California and internationally. He has worked with James Levine, Kurt Masur, Charles Dutoit, Yuri Temirkanov, Wolfgang Sawallish, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Gabor Takacs-Nagy, Pinchas Zukerman, Sarah Chang, Maxim Vengerov, Yuri Bashmet, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Bobby Mc Ferrin, Joshua Bell, Martha Argerich, Gabriela Montero, Renaud Capucon, Lynn Harrell, Misha Maisky, Frans Helmerson as well as many others. Moreover, as an improviser and interpreter of contemporary and popular music Maksim’s performance and recording career includes credits with Stevie Wonder, Chick Corea, Billy Childs, Burt Bacharach, Bobby McFerrin, Dwight Trible, Bitter:Sweet, Chris Botti, Bob James, Josh Groban, Bernadette Peters, Natalie Cole, Alan Silvestri, Richard Thompson and many others.
Harpist
Marcia Capparela
Marcia is a harpist, pianist, and organist who enjoys singing and accompanying. A recently retired school administrator, she is currently board president of Elemental Music, an afterschool music school on the Westside. Marcia is a 52-year resident of Santa Monica where she lives with her husband, classical radio announcer Rich Capparela.
Violinist
Armen Movsessian
Armen Movsessian started his formal violin instruction at the age of seven at the Tchaikovsky School of Music in Yerevan, Armenia, under the direction of Professor Mokatsian. He graduated from the Tchaikovsky School of Music for musically gifted students with a high school certificate, and the Yerevan Conservatory awarded him his bachelor's and master's degrees. Later on, only fifty-four violinists from around the world received an invitation to the 1990 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, and he was one of them. In various orchestras in the United States and South America, Armen held the positions of principal and concertmaster. Armen relocated to Los Angeles in 2002, where he worked with the Los Angeles Opera and notable film studios including Warner Bros, Sony/MGM, Paramount, Universal, NBC, and others, scoring for more than 120 films after making his stage debut with the Yanni World Tour in 2003. With a sold-out performance at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in 2010, Armen introduced his audience to a new band called Forbidden Saints. A new record called Forbidden Saints Live was then released in 2011.
Dancers
Nina Elmoyan
Nina Elmoyan has been dancing since the age of three, starting at Media City Dance under the direction of Natasha Middleton (MCD). Throughout her time at MCD, Elmoyan studied classical ballet, contemporary dance, character dance, and tap. After more than a decade of taking classes with Middleton, Ruben Tonoyan, Vartan Khachatryan, Damara Titmus, Grigori Arakelyan, Ellen Hartunyan, Eduard Sargsyan, and Sona Vardanyan, Elmoyan joined Pacific Ballet Dance Theatre (PBDT) as an apprentice under the creative direction of Natasha Middleton. Since then, she has performed in the corps-de-ballet of excerpts of The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, Masquerade, and Gayane with PBDT. Elmoyan participated in the 2022 Youth America Grand Prix with coaching from Ruben Tonoyan and Allan McCormick. She has also trained privately with Hayk Avakyan of the Yerevan National Opera and Ballet Theatre.
Alicia Khashaki
Alicia Khahsaki is an Armenian dancer based in Burbank, CA. In 2016, she moved to the United States to pursue her passion for dancing. She is experienced in a variety of different dance styles including ballet, contemporary, and jazz having trained at her high school dance team and Media City Dance. In addition, she joined the Pacific Ballet Dance Theatre as an apprentice in 2022, and has performed in various ballet excerpts, including Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, and Masquerade.
Alyssa Muller
​​Alyssa Muller is a professional dance artist from Los Angeles, CA. After graduating from UC Irvine with a B.A. in Dance, she began her professional career with Zikr Dance Ensemble in Denver, CO and has continued training with Pacific Ballet Dance Theatre since returning to California. In addition to performing with PBDT and Anaheim Ballet, she is an experience creator with Insomniac Events, picking up various skill sets along the way including fire dancing and stilt walking.
Yurino Niyama
Yurino Niyama is a ballet, contemporary, jazz dancer and choreographer from Fukuoka, Japan. She started Vaganova method ballet at the age of 3 in Japan. At the age of 14, she trained ballet at Alberta Ballet School and Victoria International Ballet Academy (VIBA) with Victoria Mironova in Canada. In performances with VIBA, she was selected as a soloist in every show, honored in the 1st place for the year examination, and honored with a scholarship for a year. After graduating from SMC, she transferred to University of California Irvine majoring in Dance in 2021. She has performed a piece choreographed by Vitor Luiz and performed as a soloist in restaged Paquita by Professional Wang,Tong in the faculty members’ show called Dance Vision, and other performances. She graduated with a BFA Performance degree at UCI in 2023. Yurino is now working as a ballet teacher, and a performer with Anaheim Ballet, Pacific Ballet Dance Theater, and Keshet Chaim Dance Ensemble. At Pacific Ballet Dance Theater, she was selected as the leading role in “The Little Match Girl.”
Aida Tonoian
Aida Tonoian began her ballet training at the age of three at Media City Ballet under the guidance of Natasha Middleton. At the age of seven she began training in character dance and international folk dances such as Armenian, Georgian, and Latin at Karavan Dance Studio under the guidance of Ruben and Edgar Nikolian, and Karine Kalousdian from 2008 to 2019. In 2016 she was accepted as a company member to TransClassics Company, founded by Edgar Nikolian and Artur Aleksanyan, and trained in contemporary and modern dance. After 2020, she continued her classical ballet training under the guidance of her father, Ruben Tonoyan, student of the Vaganova Academy and soloist of the Armenian Opera and Ballet; Eduard Sargsyan, former principal dancer of the Armenian Opera and Ballet; and Sona Vardanyan, principal ballerina of the Armenian Opera and Ballet. She was accepted into Pacific Ballet Dance Theater as an apprentice in 2022 at 21 years old, and has performed in several productions with the company including The Nutcracker, Les Patinuers, The Little Match Girl, Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, Masquerade, and Gayane. In 2022 she collaborated with Shushi Dance Ensemble in New Jersey for their 30th year anniversary performing in selections from the ballet Gayane.
Actors
Sydney Brakeley
Sydney Brakeley is an actress with the Burbank High School Dramatic Arts Department. She has performed with the Los Angeles Opera in productions like Tosca and Carmen. She has performed in productions including the Elephant Man, Radium Girls, and Grease alongside writing and directing her own plays.
Daniel Passer
Daniel Passer creates work as a performer, writer and director. For over a decade, Daniel has been a Clown and Comedy Conceptor for Cirque du Soleil and Dragone Entertainment. Credits include plays on Broadway and across the globe at venues such as Radio City Music Hall, The Beacon Theater, The Goodman, The American Repertory Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Madrid Stadium, Moscow Art Theatre and The Kremlin. He is a founding member of the international clown companies Your New Best Friends, Gods of Sex and The Rotten Plantains. Most recently, Daniel performed with David Shiner in Juliette Dunn’s “The Puzzle” at The Hedgerow in Philadelphia and is touring Heading into Night, an interactive clown ode to loss and remembrance, with long-time collaborator Beth Milles, which premiered this year at The Cherry Arts in Ithaca, NY. Daniel is currently the Associate Director of Performance and faculty of the Theater School at CalArts and has taught Commedia/Clown/Improvisation at Moscow Art Theatre, Cirque du Soleil, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Brown, Harvard, Cornell and Trinity College. For more, please visit danielpasser.com.