Ruriko Wheeler has been a Hartt Community Division faculty member since 1996. She is active as a chamber music player and as a sub keyboardist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Her collaborations include world premier performances of works by Lee McQuillan and William Zinn at Wesleyan University. She also performs regularly throughout Connecticut, including recitals at the Cheshire and Simsbury libraries, the American Museum of Art in New Britian, the Hillstead Museum, and at The Hartt School.
Prior to that, Wheeler was on the faculty at M.M. Ponce Conservatory in Mexico. She appeared as soloist with the Orchestra de Auguascalientes in the Mozart Piano Concerto #20 in D Minor. She has also been an accompanist for the Simmons College Chorus, the Hartford Ballet, and the University of Texas San Antonio vocal department, substitute keyboardist in San Antonio Symphony, and an organist at St. Ignatius Church at Boston College.
Wheeler holds a M.M. from New England Conservatory in Boston where she received a full scholarship and third prize in De Kappa competition. She received a B.M. from Elizabeth University in Japan. Her primary teachers include Alicia DeLarrocha, Ryoko Fukazawa, and John Gibbons, and chamber music coaching with Josef Suk.