Alexander Paley Music Festival
· Festival Musicians: Akemi Takayama ·
Born to musical parents in Tokyo, Japan, Akemi Takayama began her violin studies with her mother at the age of three. Her professional violin career began in Japan at the age of fifteen. Ms. Takayama is currently in her eleventh year as violinist for the internationally renowned Audubon Quartet, and tours regionally and nationally with the group. She has also served as the concertmaster of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra since 2004. Her recent solo performances with the RSO include Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Brahms’s Double Concerto for violin and cello.
In 2007 she was named as the concertmaster for The Williamsburg Symphonia and has been appointed to the Shenandoah University Conservatory of Music as associate professor.
Her professional solo recital debut in Tokyo led to a special invited appearance on the "FM Recital" program broadcast nationwide in Japan. Acclaimed by Isaac Stern as "a true musician," she was invited to the Marlboro Music Festival and has served on the faculties of the Chautauqua Institute in New York, the Idyllwild School for the Arts in California, the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina, the Marrowstone Music Festival in Washington and the Audubon Quartet’s annual String Quartet Seminar in Virginia. Ms. Takayama is active as an educator and arts advocate throughout Southwestern Virginia. During her graduate studies, Ms. Takayama was a teaching assistant to the renowned Donald Weilerstein at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she earned both an Artist Diploma and a Master of Music degree. Previously she studied with Brian Hanly at the University of Wyoming where she earned her Professional Studies degree.
Her recordings with the Audubon Quarter are on the Centaur and Composers Recording labels. Ms. Takayama plays a J.B. Ceruti violin from Cremona, Italy, made in 1805.