Bio

Hope J. Ward is a multi-talented, creative individual with a heart for storytelling while staying true to who she is. She is the creator and host of Halftimes and Harmonies. The podcast, created in 2023, combines music and sports, her two loves, in a way to educate and inform listeners of the diversity that is those two subjects. She is a 2025 graduate of Texas Christian University (TCU) with a degree in Film, Television, and Digital Media and minor in Viola Performance. She graduated from Florida State University Schools in 2021 where she was an honor roll student, captain and starting goalie for the Varsity Soccer Team, a member of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee,  Student Leadership Council, Thespian Society, Spanish National Honor’s Society and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. 

During her time at TCU, she studied viola with Dr. Misha Galaganov. Hope was in the TCU Symphony Orchestra all four years and was named the Principal Violist for the 2023 Spring concert cycle. While balancing music and academics, she was also involved with the broadcasting department as a student intern. Hope worked as a student deejay for KTCU, TCU's on-campus radio station, for two and a half years. Through TCU's partnership with ESPN+, she worked game cameras, rolled cable for the handheld cameras, and also worked the scorebug. Hope also spent some time as a student manager for the TCU Women's Soccer Team. She served as the Mentorship Program Coordinator for the TCU Women in Sports Network club.

While living in Houston, Texas, Hope began playing viola in the third grade under the instruction of Meredith Harris (Houston Opera and Houston Symphony). She eventually became the principal violist in the Houston Youth Symphony String Orchestra in 2013. Additionally, she was selected for the American Festival for the Arts Summer institute in 2015. 

Upon her family's relocation to Pensacola, Florida in 2014, by audition, Hope was one of two seventh grade students to make the Mobile Symphony Youth Orchestra and by 9th grade she was the Assistant Principal Violist. 

She has been selected three times for the prestigious Sphinx Performance Academy and three times for the East Carolina University Four Seasons Summer Chamber Music Institute. She has also been selected multiple times to perform on honors recitals at the American Suzuki Institute at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point and the Pennsylvania Suzuki Institute. By audition, Hope has been twice selected to perform on the Honor’s Recital for the Advanced Suzuki Institute at Stanford University and was selected for their Virtuosi and Chamber Music Institutes in 2019. Hope was also selected for the 2021 Florida All-State Symphony Orchestra.

When her family moved to Tallahassee in 2018, she continued her viola studies with Meredith Harris, Julliard alumni Dawn Smith and Drew Forde, and New England Conservatory alumni Amadi Azikiwe. She was a member of the Tallahassee Youth Orchestra for 2018-19 and invited to return for the 2019-20 season.  Hope entered the 2019 Tallahassee Bach Parley Kids Go for B'roque annual competition and was selected for the winner’s recital. Hope was also the principal violist of the Javacya Elite Chamber Orchestra.

During her grade school days, Hope was also a heavily involved athlete competing in six different sports. She played football (both flag and tackle), basketball, volleyball, soccer, softball, and ran track. Hope varsity-lettered as a goalkeeper in soccer and a cornerback in flag football and was a starter at both positions.

She is the founder of the Hope’s Holiday Notes Project where she organizes and directs holiday music programs for underserved populations during the various holidays throughout the year.  She has delivered over 1400 student made cards. Hope aspires to become an on-air personality in the entertainment business in a career where she can combine her love for sports and music with her creativity and leadership skills.