Ayako Pederson-Takeda
Ayako Pederson-Takeda (b.2000) is a composer-educator-cellist based in East Lansing, MI. She is a Part Time Professor of Music at Schoolcraft College (Livonia, MI) and an Instructor of Music at Madonna University (Livonia, MI), teaching courses in music theory. She holds two Master of Music degrees in Composition and in Music Theory from Michigan State University, where she worked as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. She holds two Bachelor of Music degrees in Composition and in Music Education from the University of Georgia.
Ayako's music draws on communication through stories. Her musical voice includes singable, lyrical melodies, and rich, lush harmonies to create a soundscape that is tonally colorful. She draws on her influences of contemporary classical, folk, soft rock, and singer-songwriter genres to create rhythmic grooves that fade in and out of stability. Ayako also enjoys creating washes of sound as she explores timbre and musical timing. She enjoys incorporating her own written text and poetry into her music. Ayako is largely inspired by words and photographs, and she often sees inspiration for music in her everyday life.
Composer Note: Ayako’s name is pronounced “AY-uh-koh PE-der-son Ta-KAY-da.”
Listen to her pronounce her name below!
AS A COMPOSER…
Ayako loves to write, create, and collaborate with other musicians. Her compositional process varies from piece to piece, but she works best when having conversations, workshopping ideas, using her notebook or voice memos app to capture an idea, reading poetry, taking photos on her phone, and using her cello and singing voice as elements to help synthesize her ideas.
At Michigan State University, Ayako was awarded the 1st prize in composition in the 2024 Wagner Chamber Music Competition, where she composed a piece for Proteus Percussion, the 1st prize chamber music group from the competition. At the University of Georgia, Ayako won the 2020-2021 UGA Large Ensemble Composer Residency with the Hodgson Wind Ensemble, which extended into 2022 due to Covid-19. Other groups Ayako has collaborated with include Bent Frequency (Charlotte New Music Festival, 2021), SpacePants, the Flute Intensive of North Georgia, Transient Canvas, the Athens Hip Hop Harmonic, Honk and Bonk, the KAIA String Quartet, the Phlox Quartet, the Tuba Bach Festival, and loadbang (Longy Divergent Studio, 2025).
Ayako has been commissioned by saxophonists Dr. Jacob Nance, Julien Berger, Michael Matthews, Dr. Stephen Fischer, and Michael Keeler; pianist Zaira Castillo; violist Vincent Francis; percussionists Noah Mallett and Cadence Miller; trumpeters Austin Cruz, Jon-Michael Taylor, and Kaley Rodriguez; and tubist Chris McLaughlin, among others. Her upcoming commissions include working with band director Del Hubers and percussionists Noah Kanner and Glenn VanVaulkenburgh. Ayako enjoys working collaboratively with performers to create a piece that is unique to them, featuring their musical ideas and extramusical stories. She prioritizes forming a friendship and community in these collaborations, and she enjoys knowing her collaborators as musicians and as people. Ayako has recently began to explore songwriting, combining her love of creating music with her love of writing poetry.
Ayako’s music is available on Murphy Music Press and on her website. Ayako has studied composition with Dr. David Biedenbender, Dr. Ricardo Lorenz, and Dr. Emily Koh. She enjoys working with both individuals and groups and welcomes commissions at this time. (July 2026)
AS AN EDUCATOR…
Ayako has extensive teaching experience as a private instructor, a group instructor, and a classroom instructor. She is currently a Part Time Professor of Music at Schoolcraft College (Livonia, MI), where she teaches Basic Fundamentals in Music Theory. She is also an Instructor of Music at Madonna University (Livonia, MI), where she teaches Music Theory III and Aural Skills III.
She worked as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in music theory at Michigan State University for three years. She assisted large lecture classes, ran her own music theory laboratory sections, and conducted aural skills classes. Ayako worked in multiple curriculums that expanded the possibilities of undergraduate music theory, and she has experience teaching Fundamentals of Music Theory, Music Theory I, II, and III and Aural Skills I and II.
At Michigan State University, she also worked with students from the Spartan Youth Wind Symphony teaching an Intro to Composition class. This class served as an introduction to composition for high school students with a self-designed curriculum.
Ayako worked as the Cello Instructor at Oxford College of Emory University for two years. She worked with first and second year non-music major cellists to continue developing technical and musical skills. She also coached string chamber music groups and evaluated string and piano juries.
Ayako worked as a Student Teacher at the UGA String Project for four years. In String Project, she worked with 3rd-5th graders in Clarke County and taught group music lessons on the orchestral string instruments. She designed lessons exploring general music concepts as well as string-specific lessons. In the 2020-2021 academic year, Ayako taught her String Project classes completely over Zoom.
Ayako completed her student teaching in 2022. She worked in the general music elementary classroom, where she taught musical concepts ranging from rhythm, notation, singing, handheld percussion instruments, folk dances, Orff instruments, and ukulele. Ayako holds a Georgia Teaching Certificate for PK-12 music from the Georgia Professional Standards Commission. (July 2026)
AS A CELLIST…
Ayako is an active cellist and enjoys playing with other musicians in a variety of chamber music settings. She specializes in contemporary cello performance and can often be found either premiering pieces or performing contemporary chamber literature throughout mid-Michigan.
Ayako has been a member of various university orchestras, such as the MSU Concert Orchestra (principal), the UGA Symphony Orchestra (co-principal), the UGA Opera Orchestra, the UGA British String Orchestra, and the UGA Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. Ayako has studied cello under Dr. David Starkweather and Dr. Martin Gueorguiev. (July 2026)
AS AN ARTIST…
I believe in the power of beauty. I believe in the power of stories. Beautiful stories are everywhere, and I share these stories in my art.
Stories of resistance, stories of hope, stories of despair, stories of foreign lands, and stories from my lived experiences all matter because they are never just my story. I carry the stories of my ancestors, the stories of my friends, and the stories of my collaborators.
My art captures a beautiful blending of cultures, dreams, memories, and hopes for everyone who does not fit into the mold prescribed to them.