A native of Cedar Falls, Iowa, and a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa with a Bachelors in Music Education, Mia Hagarty has had a very active performing and teaching career in Texas, Tennessee, and around the world. She has sustained a violin/viola studio in many places, including Iowa, Connecticut, South Texas, and Vienna, Austria. She specializes in the Suzuki Method as she was taught that way herself, beginning violin instruction at the age of three.  She was also an adjunct instructor of violin and viola at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas for 11 years and has taught at the Coastal Bend String Camp for many years. Mia is an active musician and has been a member of the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra and the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony. She has enjoyed playing on occasion with the Bryan Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Symphony Orchestra, the Kingsville Symphony Orchestra, the Corpus Christi Ballet Orchestra, the Bay Rock Orchestra, and the Sparkling City Opera. In recent years, she has been an invited artist at the Cedar Valley Chamber Music Festival. She has been the director and master teacher of the String Project at Tennessee Tech University since 2019.