Tenured in 2009

Cellist Kyle Champion has been a contracted member of the Long Beach Symphony since 2007, after working 10 years as a frequent substitute with the orchestra. He is currently principal cellist with the Redlands Symphony, and has performed with numerous area orchestras including the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera, San Bernardino Symphony, Pasadena Pops Orchestra, and South Bay Chamber Orchestra. Kyle was a member of the American Sinfonietta, under the direction of conductor Michael Palmer, joining the ensemble on three European tours, participating in their Summer Music Festival in Bellingham, Washington, and can be heard on their Mendelssohn CD on the Summit Records label, and the Beethoven in Bellingham CD with renowned pianist Garrick Ohlsson. In addition, he served as artist/faculty at the Wintergreen Music Festival in Charlottesville, Virginia. He rounds out his performing schedule playing chamber music recitals with the cello quartet Quatracelli!. Kyle has twice been featured soloist with the Redlands Symphony Orchestra, most recently performing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in 2007.

Kyle has been instructor of cello at University of Redlands since 1995, and has served on the faculties of La Sierra University, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Oklahoma City University and Oklahoma Baptist University. He is also the co-founder of the Chamber Music Academy of Southern California, presenting chamber music classes for young musicians from elementary to high school age. He has recently been selected as the string orchestra director for the Webb School in Claremont.

Kyle completed his Master of Music degree in cello performance at the University of Southern California, where he was a student of Ronald Leonard, and his Bachelor of Music degree at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, studying with Marion Davies. He has studied chamber music with Donald McInnes, members of the New Hungarian String Quartet and the contemporary music ensemble, Voices of Change.

Kyle is married with two sons, and loves reading about military history and railroads in his spare time. He plays on a cello commissioned by him, made by the renowned contemporary luthier Christopher Dungey in 2001.

Tenured in 1970

Victoria Bacon was born in Los Angeles and raised in Long Beach, California. A student of the University of Southern California’s Preparatory Division, she also attended the Music Academy of the West and graduated from California State University at Long Beach, with a Bachelor of Music degree in cello performance. Her teachers were Gabor Rejto, Edgar Lustgarten, and Bernard Greenhouse.

During the summers, Victoria has performed for the Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach, Long Beach and Pacific symphonies, and the Flagstaff and Carmel Bach festivals. She has played in the Debut Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, Long Beach Opera, Long Beach, Downey, Pacific and Orange County (principal cello) symphonies, Ballet West, New York City Ballet, Disneyland’s Candlelight Orchestra, The Gary Bonner Singers Orchestra (principal cello), and The Fab Four (Beatles).

Musical theater experience has included playing for the Long Beach Civic Light Opera, the theaters of La Mirada, and San Gabriel and the Laguna Playhouse.

Victoria has performed with a variety of chamber groups, including La Mer Quartet, the Lyric String Quintet, Pacific Strings, the Renaissance Players and a Long Beach Symphony string quartet (part of LBSO’s education program).

She has taught cello for Saddleback College, Vanguard University, Pacific Symphony, Orange County Youth, Long Beach All-District, Pacific Symphony Youth, and Anaheim GATE orchestras, the Youth Center in Los Alamitos and in her studio.

Her most rewarding and challenging experience has been in raising four musical, (now adult) children. Victoria is a second-generation professional musician. Her father, Roger Bacon, performed with various Big Bands across the United States, and, later, with his own band in the Long Beach/Los Angeles area for many years. Currently, he and her mother enjoy attending LBSO concerts.

Tenured in 1995

Cellist Margaret Edmondson has had a long and successful career as a teacher, chamber musician and orchestral player. She was the resident cellist with Southwest Chamber Music for four seasons and during her tenure won a Grammy Award for best small ensemble performance, performed at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, was heard frequently during their 26 weeks of statewide live radio concert broadcasts each season and participated in world premiere performances and recordings of contemporary works by Morton Subotnick, Mel Powell, Charles Wourinen, Stephen Mosko, Wadada Leo Smith, Richard Felciano and Morton Feldman. Maggie has also performed on the chamber series of the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, Camerata Pacifica, Sundays Live at LACMA as well as working with the Los Angeles Opera, Long Beach Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival Orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale Sinfonia Orchestra. Maggie was a co-founder and founding faculty of Renaissance Arts Academy, a California Public Charter School in North East Los Angeles, chosen as a California Distinguished School in 2009 and winner of the Los Angeles Music Center Bravo Award and CCSA Charter School of the Year in 2010. Her work there from 2003 to 2011 included creating and nurturing the string program that served 200 young string players each year, chairing the Performing Arts Program, teaching cello, advanced theory and conducting, and coaching chamber music. She also conducted the beginning, intermediate and advanced string orchestras and was responsible for programming, arranging and transcribing music for all performances. From 2003-2009 she had the pleasure of co-teaching a cello workshop for beginning to advanced students at the Community School of Music and the Arts with her teacher and mentor, world-renowned cello pedagogue Irene Sharp. Maggie has also had a busy private teaching studio for over 30 years. When not immersed in her musical life she can be found in the garden with her violist husband Dmitri Bovaird.

Tenured in 1972

I have been playing the cello since the age of seven and my main work has been in the orchestral and studio work areas. My first professional job was as the youngest cellist hired by the Houston Symphony under the direction of Sir John Barbirolli and Sir Andre Previn. I was also the youngest cellist hired by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of Zubin Mehta.

I have served as principal cellist with the Tulsa Philharmonic, the American Ballet Theater, the Jeoffrey Ballet and also the Pasadena Pops. I was a member of the Tulsa Philharmonic Quartet. I presently serve as assistant principal with the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra since 1972.

I have had the distinction of being the only cellist on The Lawrence Welk Show for its last seven years. I have played for six United States Presidents.

I have done numerous recordings from orchestral, classical, operatic, popular, television and movies. I have worked with Lucianno Pavarotti, Jose Carrera, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson and Madonna to name a few. Also, I have done numerous stage shows.

My teaching includes Oral Roberts University, University of Tulsa and Occidental College, plus private teaching.

I am lucky that I love what I do and it has brought me so many opportunities and has allowed me to play across the United States to the Orient and Europe.

I reside in Burbank at a home once owned by Gordon Robinson, the composer for Liberace, with my wife Maureen.

“Uncompromising musical character and a towering technique… In the breadth of her virtuosity and the charisma of her musical personality, Tsan made this work her own.” – (Daniel Cariaga/L.A. Times/Haydn D Major Cello Concerto)  

Born in France, Cécilia Tsan began playing the cello with the same teacher as her childhood friend Yo-Yo Ma. After majoring in Philosophy and Chinese, she was accepted at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique , under André Navarra, and was awarded the 1st Prize for Cello summa cum laude and the 1st Prize for Chamber Music. She is a Prizewinner at the Barcelona International Competition, the Florence International Competition and the winner of the Debussy Prize at the Paris International Competition. 

Ms. Tsan toured throughout the world not only as a soloist, but also as a chamber musician with Rudolf Firkusny, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Michel Dalberto, Jean Hubeau, Bruno Rigutto, Pascal Rogé, Pierre Amoyal, Augustin Dumay, Martin Chalifour, Hatto Beyerlé, Gérard Caussé, Heiichiro Ohyama, Edgar Meyer, etc… She has regularly performed on the radio, television and films. Since she moved to Los Angeles, she has been recording hundreds of movie soundtracks with many composers such as John Williams, James Newton-Howard, Alexandre Desplat, James Horner, Randy Newman, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, David Newman, Jerry Goldsmith, Alan Silvestri, John Debney, to name a few.  

She recorded a CD (Eleven pieces for Cello and Piano) under the Cybelia label and two CDs of chamber music by Weber and Ropartz, under the Timpani label, both with pianist Jean-Louis Haguenauer, Professor in Bloomington, Indiana University. 

She currently serves as Principal Cellist with the Long Beach Symphony under Eckart Preu and the Los Angeles Master Chorale under Grant Gershon, a position she previously held with New West Symphony and occasionally with the L.A. Chamber Orchestra and the Pasadena Symphony. Several composers, including jazz pianist Clare Fischer (Suite for Cello and String Orchestra) and former LBS Music Director Enrique Diemecke, have written solo pieces for her (Cadenza for Camino y Vision). As a founding member of the Pantoum Trio, she also recorded Jazz and Cocktails, a piano trio written by Gernot Wolfgang. The CD was released in July 2006, to critical acclaim. 

More recently she was the soloist for several pieces for Cello & Orchestra including the Suite from Memoirs of a Geisha by John Williams, the Dvořák, Saint-Saëns and Elgar Cello Concerti, and the Brahms Double Concerto. She also performed the World Premiere Eric Tanguy’s piano trio specially written for her and published by Salabert: this premiere was recorded and broadcast by Radio-France in Paris. She gave the US Premiere of that Trio for Jacaranda in Los Angeles as well as the West Coast premiere of his 2nd Cello Concerto. 

Cécilia regularly served as Principal Cello for the Oscars, the Emmys, and previously for American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and America’s Got Talent.  

In April 2019, she was invited by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka Salonen to be the French narrator of Stravinsky’s Persephone at Walt Disney Concert Hall, under Peter Sellars direction.  

In 2017, she co-founded the summer music series Sunday Afternoon Concerts in the Dome at the iconic Mount Wilson Observatory and became its Artistic Director, presenting chamber music and jazz concerts. The past two years, those performances have regularly been sold out.