Maeve O'Hara

Maeve O’Hara is a violinist and registered Suzuki violin teacher based in Chicago, IL.

Maeve presently serves as violin faculty at the Western Springs School of Talent Education & Naperville Suzuki School. Prior to her move midwest, she held faculty positions in the NYC area at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music’s Suzuki Division, the Queens College Center for Preparatory Studies in Music (CPSM), and maintained a private studio. She has prior teaching experience sharing her Suzuki knowledge in a classroom setting, working with over 300 students via the Brooklyn Conservatory’s partners program throughout several public schools across Brooklyn & Queens, as well as a intensive el sistema project via the NJ Symphony Orchestra in Newark, NJ.

Maeve holds a BM degree in Violin Performance from Ithaca College, 2010, and a MM degree in Violin Performance, summa cum laude, from Purchase College Conservatory of Music, 2012. She completed long-term training through Book 8 at School for Strings with Allen Lieb and Ekaterina Gerson, and also studied long-term with Sandy Reuning (Books 1-4) and Carrie Reuning-Hummel (ECC) . She also completed teacher training with Alice Kanack, her former teacher, in Creative Ability Development, a way of developing creativity in all children through the means of improvisation.

As musician, Maeve has been described as a violinist whose “talent could be heard from the first note” (Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg), and she has played in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and also internationally (China, UK, Ireland). Recent highlights include a performance on WNYC’s Soundcheck with Irish singer/songwriter Julie Feeney, serving regularly as principal second for the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, performing the Mendelssohn Octet on Brooklyn’s Bargemusic, and two tours (2012 & 2014) through China with the Manhattan Symphonie orchestra.

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.