About Heather Hamilton

Heather A. Hamilton- Short Bio Music- Fall 2022

Heather A. Hamilton, Ed.D., a native of Fairfield, CT has performed as pianist, accompanist, organist, percussionist and conductor throughout the United States and Europe. She attended the Mannes College of Music in New York City where she studied conducting with Amy Kaiser and Yakov Kreizbeg, organ with William Whitehead, and piano with Diane Walsh, and chamber music with Sally Thomas. She has performed with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of CT, and all three orchestras at the Manhattan School of Music. Dr. Hamilton has played in many NYC venues including Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, Symphony Space and Town Hall as well as venues throughout the United States and Europe. At the Manhattan School of Music, Dr. Hamilton was a full-tuition scholarship student achieving the degree of Master of Music in Solo Piano Performance in 1993. She studied piano with Marc Silverman and Jeaneane Dowis and then was invited back to the Manhattan School as the first pianist in the Orchestral Performance Program studying under Harriet Wingreen, pianist with the New York Philharmonic, thus earning a second Master’s Degree. As a graduate student she premiered over eighty new works and was fortunate to work with acclaimed composers Aaron Jay Kernis, Richard Danielpour and John Corigliano. She was a fellow recipient and attended the National Orchestral Institute in MD, The Waterloo Music Festival at Princeton University, was assistant to Ms. Dowis at the Music Studies Abroad Program in Provence, France for two summers and was a conducting student at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1987 learning from Leonard Bernstein, Gustav Meier, Seiji Ozawa among others. Dr. Hamilton has performed under the batons of Marin Alsop, Leonard Slatkin, Kurt Masur, Gerard Schwartz, and Gunther Schuller. She was founder and conductor of the Meetinghouse Orchestra and made her European conducting debut conducting Brahms’s Requiem in Varna, Bulgaria. Heather earned her Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Bridgeport in 2010 and is a certified teacher for Pre K-12 in music. Heather accompanies a variety of musicians in all genres. Dr. Hamilton recently moved to Delaware and is living in the beaches area while holding the Music Director and Organist position at The Presbyterian Church of Dover. She is excited to be on the teaching roster and specializes in teaching beginner through advanced piano, as well as theory, history and composition to children and adults of all ages both virtually and in person