Jennifer Best Takeda

violin

Violinist Jennifer Best Takeda is assistant concertmaster of the Sarasota Orchestra, violinist of the orchestra’s resident Sarasota Piano Quartet, and a member of the violin section of The Santa Fe Opera orchestra. Prior to joining the Sarasota Orchestra in 2005, Best Takeda was a concertmaster for the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas.

An active chamber musician, Best Takeda has performed chamber music at the New York Historical Society and on Columbia University’s Meet the Composers series, and she was a member of the Manhattan School of Music’s new-music group, the Claremont Ensemble, among others. In recent years, she’s performed with the Chroma Quartet, a string quartet she co-founded in 2008, and she’s played with ensembleNewSRQ, a Sarasota-based new-music ensemble.

Best Takeda’s additional orchestral experience includes performances with the Naples Philharmonic; the Sun Valley Summer Symphony; and the Florida, National Repertory, New York Chamber Opera, Kennedy Center Opera House, National Orchestral Institute, Breckenridge Music Festival, and Spoleto Festival USA orchestras. She’s also served as concertmaster of the Crested Butte Music Festival and as a faculty member for the Eastern Music Festival, where she also served as associate concertmaster of the orchestra.

Jennifer Best Takeda is a native of North Carolina. She received her high school diploma and her bachelor-of-music degree from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and her master-of-music degree from the Manhattan School of Music. Her principal teachers have included Elaine Richey, Nicholas Mann, Robert Mann, Mitchell Stern, and Sylvia Rosenberg. Best Takeda performs on a 1697 Giovanni Battista Rogeri violin that’s been generously donated to the Sarasota Orchestra by Ernest and Alisa Kretzmer. When she’s isn’t busy performing, she enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband, Christopher, and son, Carter.