has extensive experience teaching violin, piano, and viola for children under the age of five, as well as children that have special needs.

Taylor Cooksey began studying violin at the age of fourteen and viola at age seventeen with Dr. Georgette Popa in Irvine, California. While under Dr. Popa, Taylor participated in the Seraphim Symphony Youth Orchestra in Southern California, where she held positions as a soloist, concertmaster, and principal violist throughout her four years in the ensemble. With the symphony, Taylor had the opportunity to perform the Czardas violin solo with the orchestra at the 2012 London Olympic Games, and the Hoffmeister viola concerto at the Chambord Castle and La Madeleine Cathedral in France in 2014. Other notable performances that Taylor has been a part of include touring Germany and Prague with the BCCM Orchestra in 2017, and performing in concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Segerstrom Performing Arts Hall, and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Taylor holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Viola Performance with a minor in psychology from California State University, Long Beach where she studied with Dr. Josephine Moerschel and Dr. Jason Bonham. During her time at Long Beach, Taylor joined the American Youth Symphony Orchestra and had the privilege to perform in various studios to record viola tracks for the short film “Bruised” and for the band Tribal Seeds.

Taylor also spent part of her undergraduate career studying in the music education field, where she observed elementary, middle, and high school teachers for a total of forty-five hours and took courses that were geared towards learning how to teach various instruments to K-5 students which includes ukulele, guitar, and piano.

For the 2018-2019 school year, Taylor had the opportunity to teach orchestra at Villa Park High School, where she led the ensemble in rehearsals and prepared them for their school concerts. She also has experience teaching middle school orchestras, as she led a summer orchestra program in 2018 and 2019 at East Whittier Middle School.

She graduated in May of 2021 with a Master’s Degree in Viola Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studies with Jonathan Vinocour. At SFCM, Taylor has been given the opportunity to perform in masterclasses led by Teng Li (principal violist of the LA Philharmonic) and Jessica Bodner (violist for the grammy-winning Parker Quartet). She has also been a regular member of the school’s baroque ensemble as their principal violist, playing on a period instrument.