About Me

I’ve enjoyed teaching at SU for 20 years, and the years have flown by with exciting students from all different majors in our violin studio.

I enjoy helping players achieve their highest potential as performers, regardless of their career goals (music education, international business, health professions, publishing, you name it!). Opportunities for our violinists are many. We meet weekly in Studio Class, present informal recitals (“Studio Spotlights”) and present formal concerts. We take field trips to hear major symphony orchestras and attend pedagogy workshops. We also host master classes by outstanding teachers.

A big aspect of our program is our Violin Pedagogy, in collaboration with the SU Prep Program. If you come to SU, you’ll have the opportunity to co-teach an annual Beginner Violin Class that will result in private students of your own! Susquehanna Fiddlers (for advanced beginners) and Susquehanna Strings (an intermediate community orchestra) are other teaching opportunities for you.

I conduct the West Shore Symphony Orchestra, play in the SU Bridge Quartet and am concertmaster of the Susquehanna Valley Chorale Orchestra. I also sub with the York Symphony Orchestra.

I like gardening, reading, singing and spending time outdoors. I like to facilitate conversations about social justice and racial relations whenever the opportunity arises. I live in Lewisburg, Pa., with my husband. My son is a music education major at SUNY Fredonia and my daughter is a grad student in art history at NYU.

Visit my website! http://www.jsworchestra.com

Professional Experience

Jennifer Sacher Wiley has been the violin professor at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, PA since 1997. She is Concertmaster of the Susquehanna Valley Chorale Orchestra and Music Director & Conductor of the West Shore Symphony Orchestra in Carlisle, PA. Dr. Wiley maintains a pre-college violin studio of a dozen students ages 5-17, integrating both college and pre-college studios in a vibrant pedagogy program at Susquehanna.

Dr. Wiley is the 2005 recipient of the Susquehanna University teaching award, which she earned primarily for her work in founding the SU Orchestra, now an integral part of the music curriculum. Other entrepreneurial endeavors over the years have been the founding of the Central College Music Connection, a preparatory program in Pella, Iowa, the production of “Concert Dramas” for educational SU Orchestra tours and WSSO Family Concerts, and the founding of “Susquehanna Strings”, a preparatory ensemble at S.U. Dr. Wiley’s energetic approach to teaching and multi-faceted performing was fostered by her undergraduate education at Oberlin Conservatory, where she earned a violin performance degree while also conducting numerous operas and competing nationally with her student string quartet. This holistic approach to the music profession led to full time appointments with the South Dakota String Quartet and the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, graduate degrees in violin performance at New England Conservatory and the University of Minnesota, and the beginning of her academic career in at Central College in Pella, Iowa.

Notable violin performances over the years have included concertos with the Penn Central Wind Band, the Williamsport Symphony, the Des Moines Symphony, and the Central Pennsylvania Orchestra. She served for many years as Principal Second Violin of both the Des Moines and Williamsport Symphonies, and Concertmaster of the Northern Tier Symphony in Tunkhannock, PA. In recent years Dr. Wiley has become nationally known as a violin pedagogue, sought after for presentations and master classes for the American String Teachers’ Association and the Pennsylvania Music Educators’ Association.

Courses Taught