Deborah Hamilton was born in 1970 in the town of Sasebo, Japan. She started studying the piano at the age of fourteen. Two years later, she began playing in piano competitions and shortly won a scholarship to Brevard Music Center. The next year, she began formal studies at Converse College as a Daniel Music Scholar with Douglas Weeks, while summers were spent at Brevard Music Center. In 1991, she studied at the Taubmann Piano Institute with Robert Shannon, 1992-1993 were spent in private study with Inoue Satoko in Tokyo. In 1995, she studied with Benjamin Rawitz at the Cours International de Musique in Switzerland. Since 1996, she has been performing and teaching in Chicago, Illinois.
Deborah Hamilton has worked as a session pianist on recordings, ballet accompanist, chamber music, concertos, rehearsal pianist for orchestras and vocal accompanist among other things.
She’s played for Seymour Bernstein and Lorin Hollander in masterclasses, and studied privately with George Lucktenberg one summer at Interlochen.