Elisa Karen Tavenier (1996) was admitted to the School for Young Talent at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague at the age of six, where she received violin lessons from Coosje Wijzenbeek. With Mikhail Zemtsov she continued her studies on the viola and in 2018 she obtained her bachelor's degree with an A+ with distinction for musical personality. In 2019 she started her master with Nils Mönkemeyer at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich. Elisa Karen successfully participated in various national and international competitions. In the 2017-2018 season she was part of the Academy of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Elisa Karen performed as a soloist with various orchestras, including the Royal Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, the Nanagen Orchestra and the Netherlands String Guild. She performed the Dutch premiere of Jan Koetsier's viola concerto with the Viotta Youth Orchestra and with the Royal Conservatory Symphony Orchestra she recorded the concert for viola and orchestra by Henk Badings. She followed master classes with Tabea Zimmermann, Alfred Brendel, Nobuko Imai, Hatto Beyerle and Anner Bijlsma. She is regularly asked to perform in various orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Residentie Orchestra. Since its foundation in 2014, Elisa Karen has been part of the Animato Quartet, which reached the final of the Grachtenfestival Concours in the same year as the audience favourite. The Animo Quartet regularly participates in music sessions of the European Chamber Music Academy and take lessons with, among others, Eberhard Feltz and Marc Danel via the Netherlands String Quartet Academy. Prestigious festival organisations have invited the quartet (Davos, Harmos, Ghent and Inverno de Campos do Jordao) where they received various prizes and awards. In 2017, the Animato received the quartet stipend from the Anton Kersjes Fund.
Since 2013, Marlene plays in the Animato quartet, with which she took lessons with David Dolan, Michel Strauss, Vera Beths and the Scampa quartet. The quartet also reached the finales of the National Conservatory Competition. In the summer of 2014, the Animato quartet was invited to the Festival Internacional de Inverno de Campos do Jordão in Brazil where it received master classes from the Escher quartet and Jo Cole, head of classical music at The Royal Academy in London. The members received the "Artistic Excellence" prize in Sala São Paulo for their work during this festival. In addition, Elisa Karen had the opportunity to perform in the festival orchestra the fifth symphony by Shostakovich and the first symphony by Beethoven, conducted by Marin Alsop and Giancarlo Guerrero respectively.
With the support of the Stichting Eigen Muziekinstrumentfonds and the Princess Christina Competition, Elisa Karen is able to play a beautiful viola and bow