Photo taken by Tyler Pena
Meet Eleanor
Highlights from Ella's 2024-25 season have included collaborations with Michael Tilson Thomas, cabaret performer Meow Meow, and Ray Chen and Jean-Yves Thibaudet in Festival Napa Valley's "How I See Music" educational initiative. Refusing to let her craft be confined to one genre, Ella feels at home in various musical settings, from intimate concerts accompanying singer-songwriters (yeemz, Giulia, Nightjars) to stadium-filled rock shows (Michael Bublé, Rick Springfield, Windborne’s The Music of Led Zeppelin). Most recently, Ella performed at the opening ceremony of Super Bowl LX with American band Green Day. Ella was a finalist in the 2024 American Viola Society's Orchestral Audition Competition, and has previously spent summers at the Mendocino, Napa, Round Top, Trentino, Green Mountain, and BU Tanglewood Institute festivals, holding principal positions. Ella is an alumna of the American Youth Symphony, and has also performed with the New Century Chamber Orchestra and the California Young Artist’s Symphony.
Ella is currently pursuing her Masters degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studies with Jonathan Vinocour, Principal Violist of the San Francisco Symphony. Prior to this, she earned her Bachelor's Degree in Viola Performance from the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied under the late Roger Myers. She has been a guest instructor at Youth Orchestra Los Angeles and is currently a Teaching Artist at Music Mission San Francisco, a free after-school music program inspired by El Sistema.
Born in San Francisco and raised in Santa Monica, California, Eleanor Hammersly is a violist, creative, and community organizer with a commitment to making noise inside and outside the concert hall.
Since picking up the viola for the first time at age nine, Eleanor’s musical endeavors have led her to perform throughout the United States, South America, and Europe as a spirited orchestral, chamber, and solo player. Eleanor joined the Modesto Symphony as a section violist in 2025 and is currently a Fellow of the Civic Orchestra of Los Angeles. She is also a member of the San Gabriel Valley Symphony, a newly formed ensemble rooted in community and cultural celebration in Monterey Park, CA.