Taya Ricker

Taya Ricker is an avid chamber, orchestral, and jazz musician and has performed across the US, Canada, and Europe. 

 

Taya currently lives and performs regularly in New York City where she can often be found on the stages of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. Additionally, she holds the position of Assistant Concertmaster of the West Virginia Symphony, is the newest member of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra's violin section, and is serving as Asheville Symphony's Principal Second Violin this season. 

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During the 2022/2023 season she 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. 

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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 Columbus Symphony (Ohio), Richmond (Virginia) Symphony, the Wintergreen Summer Festival Orchestra, and the genre-bending, Miami-based Nu Deco Ensemble. 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 Jaime Lozano and his band La Familia, Melissa Barrera (of In the Heights the movie), Arthur Verocai, Look Homeward, Falls, Jacob Whitesides, Molly Ringwald, and PJ Morton.  She can be found on albums by Between the Buried and Me, Anne-Claire and the Wild Mystics, and Buffalo Rose.

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In 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 the 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.  

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Taya Ricker is a high school graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She holds a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Violin Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 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.

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Off-stage, Taya maintains a private teaching studio of budding young violinists.