CAITLIN EDWARDS

Caitlin Edwards began studying the violin at the age of eight through the Music Opportunity Program in Birmingham, Alabama. Caitlin is a 2023 Sphinx MPower Artist Grant recipient, a 2022 Esteemed Artist Award recipient from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, a 2021 3Arts/Walder Foundation awardee, 2018 Gateways Music Festival Rising Star, a co-curator with the Fulcrum Point New Music Project, and a former fellow with the Chicago Sinfonietta. In addition, she has received Grammy certificates for recordings on Disney's "The Lion King" with the Re-Collective Orchestra and for albums by John Legend and PJ Morton. Caitlin is a proud member of the board of directors of the Chicago Federation of Musicians, Local 10-208.

 She has had the pleasure to perform with the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, Nairobi Philharmonic, Grant Park Festival Orchestra, Chicago Sinfonietta, National Repertory Orchestra, the Chicago Philharmonic, Oistrakh Symphony of Chicago, and the ReCollective Orchestra in New York City and Los Angeles. In addition, she was a semi-finalist for the New World Symphony national auditions and has performed at the Kennedy Center as part of the National Symphony Orchestra Summer Music Institute. In 2021, she was featured in recital on Chicago Sinfonietta’s Music Made Classic series and in a live broadcast on WFMT with the Dame Myra Hess series. Caitlin received degrees in Violin Performance from the University of Louisville (B.M.) and DePaul University (M.M.), studying with J. Patrick Rafferty and Janet Sung. 

Caitlin is currently a mentor with the Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative, a program designed to offer resources to talented BIPOC youth pursuing careers in classical music.  She frequently performs with her string quartet, D-Composed, based in Chicago, in addition to regular collaborations with local artists. As an artist, Caitlin seeks to combine her culture and musical upbringing with classical music to create original music and content that makes her music accessible and enjoyable to all listeners. Caitlin released her debut solo album, Exhale, in August of 2021. Exhale fuses the sound of classical music with the soul and harmonies of gospel and neo-soul. She hopes to help educate and inspire the next generation of young Black musicians. Her dream is to see the voices and faces of Black people normalized in these traditionally monopolized spaces through increased visibility and disruption of the status quo in classical music. Ultimately, she wants people to see themselves in her music, connect, and heal in their own way.