Jacob Buhler

American-born violinist Jacob Buhler follows his passion across the world. As an orchestral musician, Jake is proud to be the Associate Principal Second Violin of the Auckland Philharmonia, has served as a fellow with the New World Symphony, and has performed with the Phoenix Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Recent summer engagements have included performances with the Sun Valley Symphony Orchestra, Artosphere Festival Orchestra, and the Britt Festival Orchestra, where Jacob had acted as their Assistant Principal Second Violin.

Buhler has performed alongside Danny Elfman, Judy Collins, as well as Bradley Cooper in Netflix’s Maestro (2023), which won a GRAMMY in 2025 for its soundtrack. Jacob regularly plays chamber music as well, and has performed with IlluminArts in Miami. At the New World Symphony, Jacob had performed chamber music alongside the Catalyst Quartet and members of the Cleveland Orchestra, the latter group’s performance of Shostakovich’s 9th Quartet which has been lauded as, “the finest iteration of a string quartet heard by this listener… in more than 35 years of attending this organization’s Sunday chamber programs” (South Florida Classical Review). This performance also earned an honorable mention for the top ten performances of 2023 from the South Florida Classical Review.

As an educator, Jacob believes it is important to serve the community with music. He has served as a Teaching Artist with The Rainey Institute, an El Sistema program based in Cleveland, where he taught daily group lessons to young violinists and cellists. He has also worked with the Pathways Program at the Eastman Community Music School to provide free violin lessons to local students. Most recently, Jacob has served as a faculty member with the Nashville Symphony’s Accelerando Program.

Originally from Lake Grove, New York, Jacob received his bachelor of music degree in Applied Music with Honors and an Arts Leadership Certificate from the Eastman School of Music and his master of music in violin performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music. His principal violin teachers have included Bin Huang, Juliana Athayde, Alexander Chaleff, Paul Kantor, Jessica Lee and Philip Setzer.