Darcy Drexler

Education

MM, Violin Performance, University of Illinois-Urbana

Biography

Darcy Drexler created and led the Master of Music in String Pedagogy degree program at UW-Milwaukee for over two decades, where she taught violin/viola string pedagogy courses, in addition to applied violin and chamber music. In 1990, she was a founding violin faculty member of The String Academy of Wisconsin(SAW), a pre-college music school, and retired in Spring of 2022 after serving as its Director for 25 years. Ms. Drexler is an active musician and teacher, and has given masterclasses/string pedagogy workshops throughout the United States, Brazil, China and Spain. Her former students are winning national and international competitions, are members of symphony orchestras, and teaching throughout the United States. For many summers, Ms. Drexler also directed the popular Milwaukee “Teaching the Violin to Children” workshop. She regularly presents at state and national string conferences and is currently serving on ASTA’s Collegiate Committee. She also teaches graduate and undergraduate viola and violin string pedagogy at DePaul University in Chicago. Ms. Drexler has been a member of the Dallas Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia da Camera, Hawthorne Quartet, Illinois Symphony, and the Killington (VT) Music Festival, and has performed with the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, Dallas Ballet Orchestra, Wisconsin Philharmonic, and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.

In addition to UWM and SAW, she has previously taught at the Indiana University Summer String Academy, Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and the Illinois Wesleyan University Pre-college. Interested early in teaching, she served as assistant to Catherine Tait at Meadowmount. Ms. Drexler holds Violin Performance degrees (with honors) from Southern Methodist University and the University of Illinois-Urbana.