Violinequality

10/31/21 • 31 min

Join me for a discussion with violinist Caitlin Edwards as we discuss her career as a violinist, the relationship and intersection between Classical and Black music, and her recent grant from 3arts Entertainment.
Guest Bio:
Caitlin Edwards is a classically trained violinist, arranger, recording artist, and teacher based in Chicago. She has performed with the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, Nairobi Philharmonic, Grant Park Festival Orchestra, and Chicago Sinfonietta. She’s played and recorded with artists such as John Legend, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Common, and with PJ Morton’s on his “Gumbo Album”, for which she received a Grammy Certificate. She also recorded for the Disney movie score, The Lion King, at Sony Studios. For a more detailed list of Caitlin’s work please check out her professional biography and collaborations on her website, https://www.caitlinedwards.com/.
MISSION
Music is a gift, a force that transcends all of our differences. Music is healing to a broken soul, clarity in the midst of confusion, life to those who seek it. It is my mission to share my gift to all. I will help educate and inspire the next generation of young Black musicians. My dream is to see the normalization of Black voices and faces in traditionally monopolized spaces through increased visibility and disruption of the status quo in classical music. Ultimately, I want people to see themselves in my music, connect, and heal in their own way.
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Navigating Your Music

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Elijah Daniel Smith and I discuss compositional process, pedagogical development, and his upcoming piece for the Chicago Symphony's Homecoming concert.
Guest Bio:
Described by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a “rising star”, composer Elijah Daniel Smith is quickly establishing himself as one of today’s leading young composers. From orchestral compositions to multimedia and interdisciplinary collaborations, Elijah’s affinity for dense and complex textures, rhythmic ambiguity and fluidity, and rich gravitational harmonies shines through in all of his creations. Elijah’s music has been premiered and performed by world renowned ensembles such as Mivos Quartet, Sō Percussion, Sandbox Percussion, Contemporaneous, Ensemble Linea, Ecce Ensemble, Fuse Quartet, and Earspace. Upcoming commissions include new works for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for MusicNOW, Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Bergamot Quartet, and saxophonist Julian Velasco on behalf of the Luminarts Cultural Foundation.
Elijah’s creative endeavors extend beyond the realm of traditional concert composition, including interdisciplinary work and commissions from multiple dance companies and choreographers throughout the United States. His ability to realize his own dynamic multimedia visions was cultivated by his experience as a recording, mixing, and mastering engineer for his own studio music, film scores and electro-acoustic music. In his 2019 multimedia project Come, Clarity, Elijah exercised his visual artistry as a filmmaker and photographer, creating the film as well as composing and producing the music himself.
Elijah is currently pursuing his PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University as a President’s Fellow after earning a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Composition from the Boston Conservatory in 2017, and a Master of Music degree in Music Composition from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in 2020.
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Conduct Yourself Accordingly

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Join me as I chat with Lidiya Yankovskaya about her work as the first female conductor of a multi-million dollar opera company!
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Guest Bio:
Russian-American conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya is a fiercely committed advocate for Russian masterpieces, operatic rarities, and contemporary works on the leading edge of classical music. She has conducted more than 40 world premieres, including 16 operas, and her strength as a visionary collaborator has guided new perspectives on staged and symphonic repertoire from Carmen and Queen of Spades to Price and Prokofiev. As Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater, Ms. Yankovskaya has led the Chicago premieres of Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick, Rachmaninov’s Aleko, Joby Talbot’s Everest, Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, and the world premiere of Dan Shore’s Freedom Ride. Her daring performances before and amid the pandemic earned recognition from the Chicago Tribune, which praised her as “the very model of how to survive adversity, and also how to thrive in it,” while naming her 2020 Chicagoan of the Year.
In the 2021/22 season, Ms. Yankovskaya makes a trio of Texan debuts, leading performances of Carmen at Houston Grand Opera, a tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg at Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and concerts featuring works by Gershwin and Dawson at Fort Worth Symphony. Elsewhere, she debuts with Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, makes her Minnesota Opera debut with Voices United, leads a program of Brahms and Wagner at Elgin Symphony, and makes her Pasadena Symphony debut conducting works by Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Gabriela Lena Frank. At Chicago Opera Theater, she conducts the Chicago premiere of Mark Adamo’s Becoming Santa Claus and a concert version of Carmen, starring Jamie Barton opposite Stephanie Blythe.
Ms. Yankovskaya has recently conducted Don Giovanni at Seattle Opera, Pia de’ Tolomei at Spoleto Festival USA, Il barbiere di Siviglia at Wolf Trap Opera, Ellen West at New York’s Prototype Festival, and the world premiere of Taking Up Serpents at Washington National Opera. On the concert stage, she has been recently engaged with Chicago Philharmonic, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and the symphony orchestras of Hawaii and Oviedo, Spain.
Ms. Yankovskaya is Founder and Artistic Director of the Refugee Orchestra Project, which proclaims the cultural and societal relevance of refugees through music, and has brought that message to hundreds of thousands of listeners around the world. In addition to a National Sawdust residency in Brooklyn, ROP has performed in London, Boston, Washington, D.C., and the United Nations. She has also served as Artistic Director of the Boston New Music Festival and Juventas New Music Ensemble, which was the recipient of multiple NEA grants and National Opera Association Awards under her leadership.
An alumna of the Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors and the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship, Ms. Yankovskaya has also served as assistant conductor to Lorin Maazel, chorus master of Boston Symphony Orchestra, and conductor of Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. She has been featured in the League of American Orchestras Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview and Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music, and assisted Vladimir Jurowski via a London Philharmonic fellowship.
Ms. Yankovskaya’s belief in the importance of mentorship has fueled the establishment of Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Initiative, an investment in new opera that includes a two-year residency for emerging opera composers. Committed to developing the next generation of artistic leaders, she also volunteers with Turn The Spotlight, a foundation dedicated to identifying, nurturing, and empowering leaders – and in turn, to illuminating the path to a more equitable future in