Brent Taghap, 27, is a violinist from the Tampa Bay area. Brent holds degrees from Florida State University (BM ’16) and from DePaul University (MM ’18; Certificate in Performance 20’). His primary teachers include Eliot Chapo, Corinne Stillwell, and Janet Sung. As an active performer, Brent has been a part of numerous ensembles in Chicago including the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Oistrakh Symphony, the Matt Jones Orchestra, and Unsupervised, a conductorless chamber orchestra. He has also spent summers at festivals and institutions such as the Varna International Music Festival (Austria/Italy), Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival (Vermont, USA), and the National Repertory Orchestra (Colorado, USA). As an educator, Brent has been active as a mentor with the Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative, an organization dedicated to working with students from underrepresented backgrounds within Classical Music. He also teaches privately, working with students of all ages and backgrounds. Brent also currently works for the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras as their marketing and development assistant. In addition to his studies of traditional Western classical music, Brent is also interested in preserving, cataloguing, and performing works by Filipino composers in the hopes that they will become part of the canon of works for violin. Other interests include sleeping, eating, going to art museums, hanging out with friends, and playing with his cat, Wren.