Dr. Anna Hamilton (she/her), serves joyfully as UUCC Music Director (since 2020), previously UUCC Music Coordinator (2017-2020).  She is dedicated to bringing diverse, engaging, and heart-centered music to Sunday services and events at the UUCC. Anna loves working with the many talented and creative congregants, friends, and guest musicians who participate in music in the life of the UUCC. She is director of the Adult Choir, small vocal ensemble Prism, and plans music for Sunday services and events to include many other small musical ensembles and special music. Anna feels especially at home in the space where music, mind, spirit, emotion, and people come together, and invites all those at the UUCC to join in this space. She is currently finishing the first of a three year Music Leadership Certification Program through the Association for Unitarian Universalist Music Ministries, and is inspired to grow deeper in her Unitarian Universalist faith, and share what she learns to develop the musical life of the UUCC.

Anna earned a DMA and MM in Piano Pedagogy from the University of South Carolina, and a BM in Piano Performance from Grand Valley State University.  She is an independent piano teacher in Columbia, SC, and teaches students of all ages and levels at the Hamilton Piano Studio. She is also instructor of piano and staff accompanist at the University of South Carolina Aiken.  An advocate for inclusivity in piano education, Anna began a program for piano study at women’s correctional institutions in 2013. Her experience with this work has been shared in the publications Clavier Companion and The Piano Magazine, and at the Music Teachers National Association Conference and the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. She believes in, and is committed to, sharing the transformative power of music to connect people lovingly and beautifully to themselves and one another.