Erin Kathryn Ripka received a master’s degree in violin performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music. She holds a bachelor’s degree in violin performance from the University of Minnesota and also studied violin for two years at the music conservatory in Graz, Austria. Erin completed Suzuki teacher training at the Sato Center of Suzuki Studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music under Kimberly Meier-Sims. While a student, she was a scholarship winner in the Schubert Club Strings Competition in Saint Paul, Minnesota and winner of the Minnesota String and Orchestra Teacher’s Association Solo Competition, and was a national finalist in the MTNA Young Artist String Performance Competition in Los Angeles, CA. She was also selected as the only Minnesota violinist to participate in the Viva Vivaldi! Honors Orchestra performance in Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. in 2000.

Erin’s former teachers include Sally O’Reilly, Yair Kless and Stephen Rose. She has presented numerous professional solo and chamber music recitals as a member of the “Ripka Duo” and the “Ripka-Fleming Trio” with her husband, pianist and organist, Joseph Ripka. Her performances of sonatas by Brahms and Franck in recitals sponsored by the Schubert Club of St. Paul brought her recognition for her depth and beauty of tone and expressive lyricism. She was selected by UCLA composition professor Ian Krouse as soloist on the world premiers of his “On the Beach at Night” for solo violin, baritone voice, and winds, and his “Agnus Dei” for solo violin, English horn and winds. Erin was a member of the Texas Festival Orchestra during the summer of 2009 and has performed with the New Haven and Hartford, CT Symphonies. She was featured violin soloist with the Arizona Bach Festival in 2020, performing with noted soprano Josefien Stoppelenburg and served as concertmaster for performances of the complete Handel’s Messiah with the All Saint’s Chamber Orchestra in Phoenix.

Erin is passionate about teaching at all levels. After joining the Calvary Music School in Stonington, CT in 2011, Erin built the violin studio from three students enrolled, to thirty students in three years. Her young students participate in youth orchestras throughout southeastern CT and have won positions in the CMEA Eastern Region Honors Orchestra. As an artist performer and a registered Suzuki teacher, she is well qualified to work with a wide range of performance levels, from very young beginners to advanced young artists. Erin moved in 2017 to Phoenix, Arizona, where she was the violin instructor at All Saints’ Music School. Erin moved to Oklahoma City in 2021 when her husband was appointed Canon of Music at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral. She is a member of the violin faculty at the Oklahoma Conservatory of Music where she maintains a large violin studio. She is the violinist in the Oklahoma City based “Soluna Concert Series” and recently joined the professional chamber orchestra and vocal ensemble “Tactus”.