Caitlin Renner is a Maryland-born American violist, violinist and fiddler currently living in London, UK. Prior to her move to the UK she had two violin and viola studios based in Derwood, Maryland and Fairfax City, Virginia where she taught classical and alternative styles. Additionally, she was a teacher with Little Hands Make Music, where she taught movement and music in northern Virginian preschools. Since her move, Caitlin has started this website and is exploring ways that musicians exist online.
She received her Masters of Music in Viola Performance, with an emphasis in Violin and Viola Pedagogy, from the Peabody Institute in 2014 where she studied under Victoria Chiang and Rebecca Henry. She received her Bachelor of Music at the University of Maryland, College Park, studying with Katherine Murdock. Other formative classical teachers include Michael Tree, Jutta Puchammmer-Sédillot, Doris Lederer, Gerald Fischbach, and Sohyun Park Altino.
Additionally, Caitlin has spent many summers being immersed in Celtic, Scandinavian, Americana, and fusion folk styles. She credits Alasdair Fraser‘s fiddle camps for starting her on the path to greater musical expression and seeing music as a form of language. In addition to being a frequent student, she has also presented short classes at Harald Haugaard’s International Fiddling School on Americana fiddling styles. She encourages her students to grow familiar with a variety of musical styles and incorporates folk and alternative pieces into her teaching repertoire.
Most of all, Caitlin is fascinated by teaching. Her students provide inspiration for diving further into learning more about transmitting technique and musicality through a lesson. She has training in the Suzuki method (through book 2) and the Mark O’Connor method (book 1), certification in Music Mind Games (unit 1), and attended numerous teacher workshops such as Mimi Zweig’s Violin and Viola Teacher Retreat at Indiana University and the American String Teachers Association National Conference. She has taught privately, at the Maryland Talent Education Center Summer camp, as a teacher assistant at the Peabody Preparatory and was on the faculty of the Mason Community Arts Academy of George Mason University where she taught Violin Beginnings, Violin Adventures, developed a summer program for an online short course, and taught at Viola Bootcamp, Youth Violin Camp and Violin Bootcamp. Her private students from both studios participated in group classes and ensembles as well as area orchestras.
In addition to her private teaching, Caitlin taught regular music and movement classes with Little Hands Make Music from 2018-2020. These classes opened up a whole new way of understanding music and connection. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, in person classes were stopped, so Caitlin was a part of offering a variety of classes online. The experience of helping little people navigate the big emotions of life is what led Caitlin to her current work of examining the intersection of emotional well being and making music.