Elisa Karen Tavenier (1996) started playing the violin at the age of three. When she was six, she was accepted at the young talent department of the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where she got lessons from her teacher Coosje Wijzenbeek. At the moment she is studying with Mikhail Zemtsov at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.

She was a member of the Royal Concertgebouw Academy in 2017-2018. In March 2014 she won first prize at the Prinses Christina Competition in Rotterdam and in 2017 she was a finalist of the Classic Young Masters.
She has had masterclasses with Tabea Zimmermann, Thomas Riebl, Nobuko Imai, Volker Jacobsen, Jurgen Kussmaul and Anner Bijlsma .

Since 2013 she has been playing in the Animato quartet and since then the quartet has worked with among others, David Dolan, Hatto Beyerle, Eberhard Feltz, Vera Beths en Jan-Willem de Vriend. The quartet received the quartet stipendium from the Anton Kersjes Fonds in 2017. They also reached the final round of the National Conservatory Competition held at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and were finalists in the Storioni Competition. The quartet has performed at numerous festivals like the International Chamber Music Festival Utrecht, International Chamber Music Festival Schiermonnikoog and the Harmos Festival in Porto, Portugal.

Elisa Karen plays on a viola on loan to her by the Dutch Music instrument  Fund and has been able to purchase a bow with the help of Stichting Eigen Muziekinstrumentenfonds.