Meet the Faculty!

Violinist & registered Suzuki teacher Maeve O’Hara was thrilled to join the faculty of NSS/WSSTE, after spending several years teaching and freelancing in New York, where she lived and worked in Brooklyn. She has served on the faculties of the Suzuki divisions within Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, the Queens College Lawrence Eisman Center for Preparatory Studies in Music, Greenwich House Music School, and has also maintained a private studio.

Maeve completed a Master of Music degree in Violin Performance from Purchase College Conservatory of Music, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Violin Performance from Ithaca College. She completed long-term Suzuki training at School for Strings with Allen Lieb and Ekaterina Gerson, and also studied long-term with Sandy Reuning while in Ithaca.

She is forever indebted to her primary teachers, Alice Kay Kanack, Susan Waterbury, and Calvin Wiersma, and is grateful to have studied additionally with Maureen Smith at the Royal College of Music, London.  Under the tutelage of Alice Kay Kanack, the founder of the Creative Ability Development program, Maeve had the opportunity to experience the benefits of this amazing program which teaches freedom, creativity and improvisation first hand. She is very excited to share this program with students at the Naperville Suzuki School.

Her life as performer has lead her to renown concert halls such as Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, and also internationally (China, UK, Ireland). Recent highlights include a performance on WNYC’s Soundcheck with Irish singer/songwriter Julie Feeney, performing the Mendelssohn Octet at Brooklyn’s Bargemusic, serving as principal second with the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, and two tours through China with the Manhattan Symphonie Orchestra. She has performed in masterclasses for Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Gil Shaham, Rachel Barton Pine, the Orion String Quartet, the Tashi Ensemble, and Ying Quartet. She served as concertmaster and principal second of the orchestras at Purchase College and Ithaca College, and won the 2012 Purchase College concerto competition with the Tchaikovsky concerto.