Ms. Ellen Garey has received a bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University and a master’s degree cum laude from the University of Michigan in Music Education. She has also recently completed forty hours of additional graduate coursework in music education and performance.

She has been the violin coach of the South Bend Youth Symphony and has served as Associate Director of the Lake Michigan Youth Orchestras in St. Joseph, Michigan and the Academy Youth Orchestra in South Bend, Indiana. She also was the conductor of the Battle Creek Junior Strings ensemble of the Battle Creek Youth Symphony in Battle Creek, Michigan.

As a violinist and violist, Ellen has performed on one or both instruments with the following professional large ensembles: Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Michael the Great, Michiana Symphony Orchestra, St. Joseph Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra, South Bend Symphony Orchestra, Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, The Greater Lansing Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Whiting Park Festival Orchestra. She presently focuses the majority of her performing time as a member of the Beloit-Janesville Symphony Orchestra viola section, the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra first-violin section, and as a local soloist and chamber musician.

Ellen Garey has been an orchestra director in Illinois public schools since her move here in 2001. She recently concluded invitational membership in the Conductor’s Workshop of America and her thirteenth-year as an invitational violinist and violist as an annual summer chamber music participant in Minnesota. During her career, Ms. Garey has toured Europe as a violinist, violist, and conductor. Ms. Garey has received outstanding educator awards; her school ensembles have performed internationally, and were featured in the 1999 Midwest Music Education Convention at the University of Michigan.