Olina Kilbury is a storyteller capturing the beauty of life through audio and visual media. A twenty-year-old Filipina American who grew up in suburban Southern California, her values lie in authenticity, resilience, and good meals. Currently attending the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, she studies under Dr. Oscar Bettison, Dr. Alyssa Weinberg, Dr. Sky Macklay, Dr. Laura Parker, Dr. Harlan Parker, and Dr. Rachel Braisher to receive a Bachelor of Music Composition and Bachelor of Music Education.  

She is a co-founder of the New Contemporary Tonality Collective (NCTC), a composer-performer collaboration based in Baltimore, Maryland within the student body of Peabody. Olina has gratefully watched the organization grow to over one hundred members within two years of existence and has thus far premiered eight works through their recitals. Currently, Olina acts as the project lead of the NCTC’s first Collaborative Album Project that is being funded via the Launch Grant from the Peabody Conservatory LaunchPad Office. She is also an active member of the internationally renowned Young Composers Community based in Munich, Germany and features in their first collaborative album project on multiple streaming platforms.  

For the past eight years, Olina has also served as the Music Director of the Shakespeare in the Vines Youth Camp where she arranges, composes, and teaches music incorporated into Shakespearean plays to students ages eight to eighteen. Through this, she has experience directing and performing in the orchestra pit and helping high school-aged musicians work in a fast-paced, professional environment. In 2020, she founded her own private lesson studio to teach beginner to advanced levels of ukulele playing to students across southern California. All Olina’s students graduated from her studio with the ability to play fingerstyle ukulele, developed performance practice, and an expansive repertoire. She was also part of the founding cohort of Key2Music, a non-profit aimed at bringing quality music education to underdeveloped communities, particularly in the Bay Area of northern California. Within that she planned, organized, and taught an entire virtual summer camp for students ages seven to twelve from scratch. She is now working through practicum for Music Education in Maryland, actively teaching general, vocal, and instrumental music in elementary schools across the Baltimore City and Howard Counties. Olina will be co-presenting at the Maryland Music Educator’s Association Conference happening in March 2025 in Baltimore on behalf of Peabody’s Music Education Department alongside Dr. Laura Parker.

As a photographer and videographer, she works to capture candid moments that showcase the subject’s own natural beauty. Previously, Olina has worked within the Peabody Admissions Office as an intern in outreach and marketing, creating promotional adverts for social media to represent the school, highlight student life, and emphasize the beauty of the local neighborhood. She also works as a freelance photographer doing headshots, engagement shoots, and ensemble photos with her works premiered in books, brochures, and magazines.