Second violinist Jan Septon began her love affair with the violin at age three in her hometown of Billings, Mont. She attended Indiana University, graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in music education and received a master's degree in performance from Florida State University. She studied with the concertmasters of the Minnesota, Boston and Chicago symphony orchestras.
Before winning the audition for The Phoenix Symphony in 1988, Septon served as assistant concertmaster of the Oklahoma Symphony, the Oklahoma City Chamber Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfonica de Mineria of Mexico City. She was a founding member of the “Go For Baroque” chamber ensemble, and has performed with the Flagstaff Festival, Desert Foothills Music Fest, Charlotte Symphony, and AIMS Orchestra of Graz, Austria. She also has appeared with the Music in the Mountains Orchestra in Nevada City, Calf.
An arts activist, Septon led the campaign by musicians of the nation's major orchestras to save the acoustic shell of Frank Lloyd Wright's Gammage Auditorium at Arizona State University. She is also coordinator and moderator for the popular outreach series “Phoenix Symphony CloseUps: Meet the Musicians at Borders Books.” Septon's other interests include writing, photography, travel and Himalayan trekking with her husband, Gary, a physician and violinist. They have hiked in Tibet and Nepal in the Everest and Kanchenjunga regions, and recently made a trip back to Nepal to the base of Manaslu, the world's eighth highest peak.