About

Wesley Catherine Hamilton (she/her/hers) is a violist, violinist, educator, and music theorist based in Baltimore, Maryland. Wesley graduated with her Master's degree in Viola Performance and Pedagogy at Peabody Conservatory in Johns Hopkins University in May of 2023 and completed her doctoral coursework in the spring of 2025. In addition to her DMA, Wesley is completing an additional Master's degree in Music Theory Pedagogy.  She graduated with the class of 2020 from the University of Georgia with two undergraduate degrees in Music Performance and Music Theory, Summa Cum Laude. Her primary teachers are Professor Victoria Chiang, Professor Maggie Snyder and Dr. Emily Gertsch, PhD.  Wesley is scheduled to complete her doctoral comprehensive exams and full dissertation in the next 9-12 months. 

Wesley is Adjunct Faculty of Violin and Viola at Howard Community College and teaches at The Music Institute. Her studio of 14 spans all ages and skill levels on both violin and viola. In addition to her teaching, Wesley coaches sectionals for the Columbia Youth Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestra. She has served as an adjudicator for the Howard County School System’s Solo/Ensemble Festival since 2023. Previously, Wesley taught viola and violin lessons at Mike’s Music in Ellicott City, Maryland from 2021-2024. At Mike's, Wesley taught 30 violin and viola students from ages 4-55 weekly, culminating in over 4000 lessons across 3 years of teaching. In addition to teaching, Wesley has served as a guest clinician for the Suzuki Strings of Augusta Workshop since 2024. Wesley spent the 2020-2021 school year as an itinerate teacher in the Richmond County Orchestra Program in the Richmond County School System in Augusta, GA. She was responsible for orchestra programs at Goshen Elementary, McBean Elementary, Hains Elementary, Pine Hill Middle, Butler High, and Cross Creek High School, teaching 120 students at different locations every day. 

 An avid orchestral and chamber musician, Wesley has performed as a section viola with the Harrisburg Symphony, Bach in Baltimore, The Apollo Orchestra (DC), The Live Wire String Quartet, Augusta Symphony, Aiken Symphony, and the North Georgia Chamber Symphony. Wesley has held principal positions in the UGA Symphony Orchestra under Mark Cedel and the Peabody Symphony Orchestra under Mei-Ann Chen.  In addition to her ensemble experience, Wesley has been a finalist in both the UGA Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition and the UGA Wind Ensemble Concerto Competition. She has participated in masterclasses with Ettore Causa, Jordan Bak, Roberto Diaz, Ivo van der Werff, Victoria Chiang, Edward Klorman, Jenny Snyder-Kozoroz, Erika Eckert, Daphne Gerling, and Hillary Herndon. 

In fall of 2024, Wesley co-developed a pre-accelerator for The Pava Center, the hub for student entrepreneurship at Johns Hopkins. In the Kindling program, students develop a problem area and perform customer discovery to explore possible solutions and market value. Along with co-lead Selena Shirkin, the two developed the curriculum and facilitated each 8-week cohort across two semesters.  From 2023 to 2024, Wesley was a Strategic Advisor for the Spark Accelerator at The Pava Center. Wesley advised a cohort of ventures in early development, including pitching and pitch deck creation, MVP planning, early financial models, and customer discovery. Wesley completed the Spark Accelerator in the fall of 2022 with her current venture, The Practice Peg, LLC. In addition to her student internship at The Pava Center, Wesley was a Teaching Assistant for the Breakthrough curriculum at Peabody Conservatory from 2022-2024. 

Wesley served as an Assistant Dean/Lead Activities Dean for the Brevard Music Center's 2024 season. Wesley attended the Brevard Music Center during high school and college in 2015-2017, 2019, and 2021, where she studied with Maggie Snyder and Jenny Snyder-Kozoroz and has also worked as a high school and college Resident Assistant. At Brevard, Wesley performed with the BMC Orchestra and the Brevard Camerata, where she held principal positions under maestros Keith Lockhart, Ken Lam, and JoAnne Falletta. Wesley attended the Aspen Music Festival in 2022, where she performed with the Aspen Festival Orchestra and studied with Professor Victoria Chiang. While at Aspen, Wesley taught several students through the AMFS P.A.L.S. program.Additionally, she attended the Montecito International Summer Music Festival in 2018 where she studied with Yizak Schotten. 

While pursuing an education in viola performance, Wesley also studied many areas of music theory including semiotics, narrative archetype approaches, undergraduate theory pedagogy, Schenkerian analysis, serialism, small and large formal analysis, Neo-Remannian theory, and atonal techniques. 

Wesley is mother to Zelda, her sweet and amazing cat. In her spare time, she enjoys playing video games, socializing with friends, walking in nature, attempting to be funny, and napping.