Taya Ricker, Violin
Taya Ricker, violin, is an avid chamber, orchestral, and jazz musician who has performed in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. As an orchestral musician Ms. Ricker has been a member of the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra and also served as Associate Concertmaster in the Western Piedmont Symphony. She has also performed in the violin sections of the Asheville, Richmond (Virginia) Symphony, and the Wintergreen Summer Festival Orchestras. She appears on the Grammy nominated recording of ‘Children of Adam’, a work commissioned by the Richmond Symphony Orchestra for their 60th anniversary, by Mason Bates. Taya enjoys collaborating with musicians in all genres and has performed with many artists including Look Homeward, Falls, Jacob Whitesides, Molly Ringwald, PJ Morton. She can be found on albums by Between the Buried and Me, Anne-Claire and the Wild Mystics, and Buffalo Rose, and has been a regular guest performer with the UNCG Jazz Ensembles I and II. She currently is a tenured member of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, an associate musician in the Columbus Symphony (Ohio), a core member of the Pittsburgh-based contemporary music ensemble Alia Musica, and performs with Cellist and conductor Amit Peled and his Mount Vernon Virtuosi. During the 2022/2023 season she has appeared as guest concertmaster with the Spartanburg Philharmonic, guest assistant concertmaster with the Asheville Symphony, and principal second violinist with the Mount Vernon Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra. n 2010, Taya, along with Pianist John Salmon, began a concert series in Greensboro North Carolina in collaboration with the MacKay Foundation for Cancer Research with all proceeds going to Wake Forest University School of Medicine section on Hematology and Oncology. The MacKay Foundation concerts continue to bring together notable jazz and classical musicians who have donated their time, energy, and talent. Taya Ricker is a high school graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She holds her Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music in Violin Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro under the instruction of Dr. Fabian Lopez. She also holds a Post Baccalaureate Certificate in Jazz Studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro under the instruction of Professor Chad Eby. In May of 2019 Taya completed an Advanced Music Studies Certificate at Carnegie Mellon University under the instruction of the great Maestro and Violinist Andrés Cárdenes. Taya is currently based in New York City where she freelances and maintains a private teaching studio. For more on Taya, please visit https://www.tayaricker.com/