On Saturday’s live broadcast, we feature 17-year-old violinist Noelle Midori Takebe Naito. Noelle lives in Elkridge, Maryland, and she is a Merit Scholarship Fellow at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Academy, a training center for advanced pre-college musicians. She currently studies violin with Almita Vamos and Davis King.
Noelle began her violin studies when she was four years old at the Peabody Preparatory with Elizabeth Faidley. She then studied violin with Olga Khroulevitch, Keng-Yuen Tseng, and Li Lin before studying at The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division under Masao Kawasaki. In 2016 and 2017, she participated in the Heifetz International Music Institute, Virginia, where she studied with Mihaela Martin, Joan Kwuon, Mark Kaplan, Nicholas Kitchen, Patinka Kopec, and Elmar Oliveira.
Noelle made her solo debut with the Kostroma Symphony Orchestra (Russia), when she was nine years old and performed the third movement from Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. She has also performed with the Columbia Orchestra (Columbia, Maryland) and the Landon Symphonette (Bethesda, Maryland). Noelle has played in venues such as Weill Recital Hall in New York City; Cadogan Hall in London, and Franz Liszt House in Weimar, Germany.
Noelle was recently a semi-finalist at the 2019 Cooper International Violin Competition and was also selected as a Student Artist at the 2019 Starling-Delay Symposium held at The Juilliard School where she performed in masterclasses for Kathleen Winkler and Midori. As an avid chamber musician, Noelle has been a prize winner at the Rembrandt Chamber Competition, Grand Prize winner at the Pearl G. Barnett Chamber Music Competition, and a finalist at the Saint Paul Chamber Competition. She was also a semi-finalist at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Her other interests include yoga, ballet, and Japanese culture.