Satoko Rickenbacker, a violist with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra since 2003, and serving as an acting Assistant Principal in the 24/25 season, began studying violin and piano and voice at an early age at Music School in Tokyo, Japan. She earned an honor scholarship to study violin in Austria with Ruggiero Ricci at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, and she continued to study with Lewis Kaplan and Rebecca Young at the Mannes College of Music while completing her double major for master’s degrees in Violin and Viola Performance. And also she got accepted to The Manhattan School of music for the orchestra program and New World Symphony Orchestra in 1999. During the time, Her main mentor and teacher was Ms. Nobuko Imai and Mr. Roberto Diaz. She started to serving as principal violist and Chamber musician with the New World Symphony where she performed Bartok’s Viola Concerto as the winner of the NWS concerto competition. She has also participated at the Pacific Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Center, Verbier Festival and collaborated with numerous artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Claudio Abbado, Seiji Ozawa, Yuri Bashmet, Itzhak Perlman and Bobby Mcferrin. Satoko Rickenbacker has also appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra as a sub. In addition, she had performed as a chamber musician in many countries as Japan, France, England, Czech, Hungary, Austria, Swaziland, and United States. She was also featured on CNN headline News at the Rialto. She has performed as guest principal viola with the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra with Mark O’Connor and Joel Smirnoff. In addition to performing, she is very passionate about teaching and particularly for the students who are interested to pursue their career in music performing field and  help them to get in a known music school and connect to the new teacher to study. Currently she is a member of The Chesapeake String Quartet and also actively serving as a viola principal of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and Opera Roanoke.