Pamela West-Finkle
Pamela West-Finkle is a former bassoonist with the US Army Bands, a music educator, a community music facilitator, award winning singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, session musician, and music industry veteran, bringing decades of performance and teaching experience to the Hartwick music department.
She received her Bachelor of Science in Education from Ashland University in Ohio where she was a bassoonist with both the Ashland and Akron Symphony Orchestras and a member of the EJ Thomas Hall pit orchestra for productions of ToPamela West-Finklesca, Madame Butterfly, and Don Giovanni.
In 1994, she began recording and releasing her original acoustic art rock music under the name Angel Pam West, embarking on a successful career as an independent singer-songwriter for the next fifteen years, performing and recording as a solo artist, in duets, bands, and as a session player. In 1999, she was signed by Michael Quatro to his Detroit record label, and then relocated to New York less than one year before 9/11.
Her flute and bassoon work can be found on nearly twenty independent albums and in numerous award-winning short films over the last thirty years, to include a grammy nominated Dog on Fleas album. Her original recordings have garnered rave reviews, radio play, and film placements both nationally and internationally and she has made many radio and several television appearances over the years.
Most notable venues and performances include CBGBs, BB Kings, the Hard Rock Cafe NYC, the Bitter End, VH1 Daily Beat TV, Tribeca Blues, Club Europa in Brooklyn, the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, Mama Kin’s in Boston, the Philadelphia and Cleveland Undercurrents Music conferences, the 2000 Moondance Jam Classic Rock Festival in northern Minnesota, and twice she was a special musical guest at the United Nations in Manhattan. She has graced stages in Vienna Austria, London, Wales and the Caribbean, and in 2018, she performed off Broadway in a rock opera selected by the New York Musical Festival.
Since moving to the Catskills to raise her family, she spent seven years as a Pre K-12 public school music teacher and taught early childhood music for twenty years. She received her Masters in Music from the University of Montana, Missoula in 2012 and plays bassoon with the Catskill Valley Wind Ensemble as well as a number of community chamber groups. She was a former member of the Hartwick Rock Orchestra and in spring 2026, played bassoon with the Hartwick Wind Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. She is a well known children’s entertainer in the Oneonta area, a multi-instrumentalist with the tribute band The Justice League, and can often be seen performing her original music either solo or with her husband in the band The Diviners.
In 2020, Pamela West-Finkle founded her non profit, The Community Music Network, whose mission is to bring the power of music to those who need it most–especially to the very young and the very old, at-risk teens, and the sick/disabled. She researches the sociological impacts of music within community, and her work with dementia patients is certified by the Music and Memory Foundation under the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function.