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Above: ©Cutts Photography, Below: ©12/34 LAB
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About Grace ♥
Grace’s musical endeavors have taken her into various different music genres including western classical music, jazz, baroque, contemporary, and free improvisation.
Currently based in Philadelphia, PA, she sustains a multifaceted freelance career as a performer, educator, creative, and arts advocate. Her work revolves around building relationships with different communities through performances and organizational work. Her passion project, MUSEical Tales, was founded in 2021- a program for elementary-aged students that combines music and literacy education (more info under Projects). MUSE-ical Tales has reached over 150 children throughout Philadelphia, Camden, and Detroit. She also has held the position of the Director of Partnerships at Practice.Party, a online music education platform, where she builds and maintains relationships with partner organizations around the nation. They’ve worked with many supportive housing partners to provide a gift of a free instrument and private music lessons to their communities.
Her robust freelance and teaching career takes her all around the USA- playing in several professional ensembles including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Princeton Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, A Far Cry, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Her main mentors have been Misha Amory, Roberto Diaz, Mark Fewer, Edward Gazouleas, Hsin-Yun Huang, Denise Lupien, and Steve Tenenbom. She has played in several viola masterclasses with Tabea Zimmerman, Nobuko Imai, Kim Kashkashian, and Atar Arad. Her festival appearances include the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Monadnock Music Festival, HIMA, Music from Angel Fire, Colorado Music Festival, Music Master Courses Japan, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.
Grace joined the Vera Quartet as a member in 2021. In her time with the quartet, two works were commissioned: It Takes a Village by Alexis Lamb which is a piece for string quartet and community members and Milk Tooth by Elise Arancio for string quartet and toy percussion. Their mentors have been Peter Oundijian, Danish Quartet, Harumi Rhodes, and the Brentano Quartet. They are currently working on curating a program for Music for Autism.
Please go follow my personal Instagram page @grace.takeda and the quartet’s page @verastringquartet to follow on all the adventures!
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A native of North Vancouver, BC, Canada, Grace began her studies on the violin at the age of four after being awed and inspired by Sailor Neptune, a character from her favorite tv show as a child, Sailor Moon, playing Boccherini’s Minuet on the violin. At the age of six, she started taking piano lessons, following in her older sister’s footsteps, and performing in provincial and national festivals on both instruments.
She seized an opportunity in the midst of her undergraduate degree as a violin major, to delve into viola playing whilst preparing W.A.Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with her best friend. Immediately, she realized her love of lower frequencies and has not turned back since….
The picture on the left is of Grace when she was 4 years old and had just transitioned from a box violin to a real, wooden violin.
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Teachers
Viola- Misha Amory, Roberto Diaz, Edward Gazouleas, Hsin-Yun Huang, Andre Roy
Violin- Mark Fewer, Denise Lupien, Akira Nagai, Heilwig von Koenigsloew
Education
McGill University- Bachelor of Music ‘16
The Juilliard School- Master of Music ‘18
Curtis Institute of Music- Artist Diploma ‘21
Curtis Institute of Music- Community Artist Fellowship ‘22