“Music was and is honored in Pekin,” she said from her beach home on the Pacific coast. “It gave me a foundation and roots to know that music is important.”

Her parents, Bob and Maxine Oliverius, were an essential part of that foundation. They still live in Pekin, and have supported their daughter throughout her career, no matter where it has taken her.

Oliverius said her musical journey began as a three-year-old singing in the “cherub choir” at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Pekin. She said the choir director, Noreen Towne, told her mother that, unlike most children her age, the toddler sang on pitch and understood rhythm. The director recommended piano lessons to nurture those nascent talents. Piano led to violin lessons with Pat Hackler, one of her first mentors and inspirations. But she said she never truly connected to the instrument. When a cello was placed in her hands, she knew, “that was it.”

“The sound is more like a human voice,” she said. “The instrument connects to your body so the vibration of the instrument is going through your system continually.” Although she still plays and teaches violin, the cello remains her instrument of choice.

Oliverius pursued her passion for music in elementary school, junior high school, and at Pekin High School, where she played in the orchestra and was a founding member of The Notables, a vocal ensemble that performed locally and across the state. It was while she was in high school that a tour group from Japan stayed with her family in Pekin while working to bring the Suzuki Method of music education to America.

Developed by Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, the Suzuki Method is based on the idea that every child can learn to play music through the same process they use to learn language. It emphasizes listening, repetition, parental involvement, and instruction to enhance musical ability and character development.

In 1977, Oliverius was asked to join a pilot teacher training program at Western Illinois University. Somehow, the young musician’s busy schedule allowed her to represent Pekin as Miss Marigold in 1979. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music education business from WIU in 1981 and went on to establish Suzuki music schools in Lasalle, Princeton, and Ottawa. At their peak, a staff of eight served 300 students a week. 

Those schools have closed, but the Illinois Valley Youth Symphony that she founded continues to give young people in the region unique musical opportunities. And even though the schools have disappeared, she said their legacy lives on in music teachers and professional musicians.

“It wasn’t about creating incredible musicians,” she said. “It was about creating incredible human beings with good hearts and souls and an understanding of the arts and how to support them.”

While working with the youth symphony ,Oliverius was also director of the Sylvan Learning Center. She has worked in the nonprofit sector for most of her career as a grant writer and consultant. She has served on the boards of numerous organizations, helping them establish a donor base and helping foundations move to 501(c)(3) status. She earned a master’s degree in leadership from the University of Illinois, Springfield, in 2008.

The SAA is a community of more than 6,000 teachers, parents, educators, and learners dedicated to making music and early childhood education available to young people throughout the Americas. Oliverius served as chair-elect before moving into the chair role in 2025. She said the fastest areas of growth are in Central and South America.

“Getting to connect with Latin America and South America is, to me, such necessary and fulfilling work,” she commented. “To see how they are changing lives through music and literally lifting people out of poverty.”

“I feel a deep sense of pride in what the Suzuki Method embodies in strengthening families of all types, raising up children with kind hearts and strong, disciplined skills in creating mastery not only in music, but in all subjects,” she said in a recent interview in SLO Review.

Oliverius currently maintains a music studio of 35 students, directs three orchestras at the Waldorf School, performs with her group, Encore Strings, and in orchestras around San Luis Obispo, and is a church musician. While music is still the central focus of her life, she admitted that living in “the land of a thousand beaches” makes her want to find more time to walk her dog, Spark, and go to the beach.