Ela Tokarska

Biography

Dr. Ela Tokarska is a distinguished violinist, violist and pedagogue with rich musical experience expanding throughout Europe, The United States and Asia. Dr. Tokarska performs regularly as a soloist, chamber musician, recitalist as well as an orchestral musician. Her performances included appearances in venues such as the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Pomeranian Philharmonic, Zielona Gora Philharmonic in Poland, the Lutheran Ichigaya Center in Tokyo, Julie Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts at the Auburn University, Callaway Auditorium, LaGrange, GA, The Polish Center of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York City.

Born in Poland, Dr. Tokarska began her formal musical education at the Arthur Rubinstein School of Music in Bydgoszcz and continued her studies at Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz as a violin student of Prof. Jadwiga Kaliszewska. During her time in Poland, Dr. Tokarska has won many prestigious national competitions including the National Audition of String Instruments (2004, 2006), the Johann Sebastian Bach National String Competition (2005), was awarded the European Center of Culture Award (2005), as well as the Viva La Musica Foundation Award (2005-2007), and from 2007-2010 was granted the Marshal of Torun Scholarship for her musical achievements. In 2010, Dr. Tokarska was awarded a prestigious Woodruff Scholarship that allowed her to continue her musical education under Prof. Sergiu Schwartz at the Columbus State University, Schwob School of Music in The United States.

Dr. Tokarska established herself in recent years as an active performer and pedagogue. In the summer of 2013, Dr. Tokarska was touring around Japan in a series of Tokarski Duo concerts, which was supported by the Polish Embassy in Japan and the Polish Institute in Tokyo, where she performed alongside her brother and pianist Kamil Tokarski. In 2017 Dr. Tokarska was awarded the Second Prize Winner of the American Fine Arts Festival International Concerto Competition.

She performs regularly with prestigious ensembles across the southeast including the Space Coast Symphony Orchestra in Florida, Columbus and LaGrange Symphony Orchestras in Georgia, Charleston, and Hilton Head Symphony Orchestras in South Carolina, as well as Fayetteville and Greensboro Symphony Orchestras in North Carolina among others. As an orchestral musician she performed with such world-renowned artists like Emanuel Ax, Olga Kern, Yevgeny Kutik, Bella Hristova, Mayuko Kamio, and others. Besides her extensive experience as an orchestral musician, Dr. Tokarska performs regularly as a soloist, chamber musician and recitalist As an avid soloist Dr. Tokarska performed with such orchestras like Capella Bydgostensis in Poland, the Estate Musicale Frentana Festival Orchestra in Italy, LaGrange Symphony Orchestra and Schwob Philharmonic Orchestra in the US. As a chamber musician and recitalist Dr. Tokarska recently performed at the Fundraiser Concert for Ukraine as well as the Chamber Music Series - Rice Toyota Sitkovetsky & Friends in Greensboro NC. She served as a guest artist at the Schwob School of Music faculty recitals, where she performed alongside world-renowned artists such as Wendy Warner, Alexander Kobrin, and Sergiu Schwartz.

As a pedagogue and an educator Dr. Tokarska has been working with various educational institutions developing music programs in both her home country and in the United States. She has been part of the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Pomeranian Philharmonic Education Series where she presented, lectured, and performed works by Polish composers as part of the Polish music outreach program. Since 2011 she has been teaching at the Schwob School of Music Preparatory Division, Columbus Symphony Orchestra - Making Music Matters Program, LaGrange Symphony Orchestra – Strings Attached Program and Ovation Summer Music Camp Program, where she taught violin lessons, coached chamber music groups, lead orchestra rehearsals, and orchestra sectional rehearsals, as well as worked as a violin instructor at local elementary schools in Georgia.

In 2018 Dr. Tokarska served as an Adjunct Professor at LaGrange College in Georgia and from 2019 to 2022 was an Instructor of Violin at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. She holds a Doctoral Degree in Violin Performance and Pedagogy Cognate from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, Bachelor's degree, Master degree as well as her Artist Diploma in Violin Performance from the Columbus State University, Schwob School of Music. Dr. Tokarska performs on a violin made by Wojciech Topa in 2016, in Zakopane, Poland.