Sphinx Organization

Bill Neri, Director of Ensemble Advancement, Sphinx Organization

Bill Neri is driven to create, facilitate, and perform through the intersection of art, community, and excellence. Bill serves as Director of Ensemble Advancement for the Sphinx Organization, coordinating the convening and impact of the Sphinx Virtuosi and Sphinx Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, Bill manages the The National Alliance for Audition Support, an unprecedented national initiative to increase diversity in American orchestras. In 2021, Bill joined the third cohort of Sphinx LEAD, a program designed to evolve the industry landscape by empowering the next generation of executive leaders. In addition to his years as an administrator, he has performed as a violist on stages across the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Bill held the Assistant Principal Viola position with The York Symphony Orchestra and has toured extensively with the Sphinx Virtuosi. In the summer of 2019 he performed with Central City Opera in Colorado during their productions of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Britten’s Billy Budd. Additional orchestral engagements have found Bill playing with The National Symphony Orchestra, The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, PostClassical Ensemble, The Malaysia Philharmonic, and others.

Bill earned his Bachelor of Music degree under the guidance of Victoria Chiang at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD where he was a recipient of the Christian A. Johnson scholarship.

Caitlin Edwards, violin

Caitlin Edwards began studying the violin at the age of eight through the Music Opportunity Program in Birmingham, Alabama. She is a 2022 Esteemed Artist Award recipient from the city of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, a 2021 3Arts/Walder Foundation Awardee and a co-curator with the Fulcrum Point New Music Project. She received the 2018 Rising Star Award from the Gateways Music Festival and won the University of Louisville Concerto Competition in 2017, performing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. Caitlin has appeared as a soloist with the Chicago Solisti, Alabama Youth Symphony, and was a finalist in the Collegiate Virtuoso Concerto Competition held in Atlanta, GA. In addition, she was a featured soloist in the “Dreams of Hope” documentary (Violins of Hope), which premiered on PBS stations across the US and has received awards nationally and internationally.

In her career, she’s had the opportunity to perform and record behind artists such as John Legend, Earth Wind and Fire, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Stewart Copeland, Common, Lucky Daye, Yolanda Adams, India Arie, PJ Morton, and more. Caitlin also had the opportunity to record in the ReCollective Orchestra the movie score for the Disney movie, “The Lion King,” at Sony Studios in April of 2019. She has received four Grammy certificates for her work on these projects. 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.