An experienced violinist and musician, Christina Wilke is Orchestra Director and a piano teacher at the YES Prep West, a college-preparatory charter school for low-income and underprivileged students in Houston. In its first year, the YES Prep West 6th grade orchestra program boasts two beginning orchestras, an elite advanced orchestra, and twenty-five piano students. 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 has recently played with the Woodlands Symphony Orchestra (TX) and has played with, among others, the Canton, Ashland, Mansfield, and Washington Symphony Orchestras, and the Friday Morning Music Club 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. This will be Christina’s first performance at the University of St. Thomas.


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 with a Master of Music under the tutelage of Professor Kenneth Goldsmith. She plays on an 1891 Paul Bailly violin.