Violinist Akemi Takayama is an associate professor at the Shenandoah University
Conservatory of Music where she holds the Victor Brown Endowed Chair. She has also served
as the concertmaster of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra since 2004, Williamsburg Symphony
Orchestra since 2007, the New Orchestra of Washington since 2010. As a student, Ms.
Takayama won positions in the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival and the Isaac Stern Music

Workshop at Carnegie Hall.  She received first prize in the Music Teachers National Association
Northwest Regional competition and the Grand Junction Young Artist competition. From an
early age, Ms. Takayama was heard throughout Japan, including appearances with the Shinsei-
Tokyo Philharmonic, the Toho School of Music Orchestra and on FM Recital, broadcast in Japan
on NHK Radio. She has also performed with the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, the Yomiuri
Philharmonic Orchestra, Music at Gretna, and the New World Symphony Orchestra. Ms.
Takayama appears regularly as soloist and concertmaster of the RSO, and WSO as well as an
active chamber musician. Ms. Takayama was a member of the internationally renowned
Audubon Quartet for fourteen years while the group toured regionally and nationally. Akemi has
served on the faculties at Oberlin Conservatory, Virginia Tech, the Chautauqua Institute in New
York, the Idyllwild School of the Arts in California, the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina,
and the Shenandoah Performs Festival. Her recordings with the Audubon Quartet include four
CDs, all available on the Centaur and Composers Recordings labels. Ms. Takayama plays on a
Santino Lavazza violin made in 1714 kindly loaned by the Ryuji Ueno Foundation.