Christina Wilke

An experienced violinist and musician, Christina Wilke is currently an Instructor at the Louisiana Academy of Performing Arts (LAAPA) in New Orleans, LA. She specializes in string instruction, particularly violin and cello, and also teaches piano and voice students. For the past two years, Christina was the Orchestra Director and a piano/choir teacher at YES Prep West, a college-preparatory charter school for low-income and underprivileged students in Houston. In its second year, the YES Prep Orchestras boasted 240 violinists, violists, and cellists in six full-sized string ensembles as well as a major partnership with Mercury Baroque, a professional baroque ensemble in Houston, TX. The orchestra program has performed to critical success at the Trills and Thrills Music Festival as well as at the Wortham Center in downtown Houston. As an educator, Christina has worked with youth symphonies, high-school orchestras, and private students to further music education in Texas, Ohio, and Virginia.

Christina can currently be seen playing in a substitute capacity with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and has played with, among others, the Woodlands, Canton, Ashland, Mansfield, and Washington Symphony Orchestras, and the Avanti Orchestra. During the 2002-2003 seasons, she performed as concertmaster of the Rappahannock POPS Orchestra and co-concertmaster of the Washington Symphony. She has performed in a substitute capacity with both the Colorado and National Symphony Orchestras. In the summers of 2005 and 2006 she was granted a fellowship to attend the prestigious National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado.

She has also performed with numerous chamber music organizations in the Houston area, including Da Camera of Houston and Rice University’s 20-21 Ensemble. In 2010, she performed as guest on the faculty series at the University of St. Thomas, and again as a duet partner with cellist Evan Leslie at the Restoration Music Series in Galveston, TX.

Born in Alexandria, VA, Christina began the violin at the age of 9. She was accepted to the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2003 to study with renowned pedagogue Linda Cerone. Christina graduated from the Bachelor of Music program in 2007, with Academic Honors. Other teachers include Vernon Summers, Susan Midkiff, Jonathan Swartz, Carolyn Huebel, and Ricardo Cyncanates. She was the recipient of the Gill Foundation Scholarship at Rice University and recently graduated in 2009 with a Master of Music under the tutelage of Professor Kenneth Goldsmith. She plays on an 1891 Paul Bailly violin.

Blog Posts

2011: Aug. Sep.

2006: May

2005: May

2004: Aug.