Alyssa Moquin, a cellist with the Richmond Symphony for nearly twenty years, has a broad career performing, teaching, presenting and writing about music. Given a strong foundation in ensemble training from the Solti Orchestral Project at Carnegie Hall, the National Orchestral Institute, the Banff Centre and the Kent-Blossom Festival, Alyssa has performed with many orchestras in the mid-Atlantic region, including as a regular section leader. Throughout her career she has performed small ensemble works by modern and contemporary composers.

With an especial talent for the lyrical side of music, Alyssa frequently performs solos at church services and special events. In recent years she has soloed at the Washington National Cathedral, National Shrine and Finnish Embassy in Washington, D.C., for the Music in the Old Church series in Richmond and for the American Musicological Society meeting in Philadelphia. In addition to her professional engagements, she volunteers to provide therapeutic music for hospice patients.

Alyssa enjoys engaging concert audiences with program notes and talks especially designed to inspire thought and conversation about the composer’s creative process. Her interdisciplinary doctoral dissertation, in progress at the University of Maryland, examines how friendships which Finnish composers Jean Sibelius and Joonas Kokkonen had with artists and architects fostered a shared creative process. Alyssa, a longtime Fennophile, appeared at FinnFest USA in the years 2005-2007 and 2011, performing in groups and presenting her “Finland: Arts Related” programs.

Alyssa has taught music for many years, including strings for Virginia Commonwealth University and Arlington Public Schools. She most recently worked as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Maryland for courses in popular and classical music history. She now teaches stringed instrument lessons at Concordia Lutheran School and DeMatha High School in Maryland.

Alyssa studied music history and journalism at the University of Maryland, where she had cello lessons with Evelyn Elsing and David Soyer. She earned a Master of Music in cello performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Bonnie Hampton. As a high schooler she had the tremendous opportunity to study with Oliver Edel, a professor emeritus of the University of Michigan.