Caitlin Majewski is a professional violin teacher & the founder of Forte Violin Academy, est. 2018.

 

A graduate of the Juilliard Pre-College, she was accepted to the undergraduate program at The Juilliard School and offered the prestigious Joseph Fuchs Merit Scholarship.

 

Realizing her calling lies within arts education/mentorship, she turned down Juilliard undergrad, and chose to accept her offer of a full-scholarship for the dual-degree program at Bard College and Conservatory. At Bard she earned her B.M. in Violin Performance alongside her B.S. in neuroscience-focused Psychology (2015). She also holds an A.F.A. in Design (Summa Cum Laude; Phi Theta Kappa), graduating with a 4.0 GPA.

 

Caitlin's teachers include: Lewis Kaplan of the Juilliard School, who was a student of the legendary violin teacher Ivan Galamian, Weigang Li of the Shanghai Quartet, Isaac Malkin and Ella Rutkovsky of the Manhattan School of Music.

 

Caitlin was invited to attend Bowdoin International Music Festival for 4 summers, and has been a part of New York Youth Symphony, and Contemporaneous New Music Ensemble. She has participated in master classes and chamber music instruction with Pamela Frank, Boris Belkin, Ani and Ida Kavafian, the Ying Quartet, Renee Jolles, Sergiu Schwartz, Mikhael Kopelman, and Laura Goldberg, Imannuel Borok, among many others.

 

Some major highlights at Juilliard include:

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♫  receiving an "A+" on her end-of-year jury exam from Itzhak Perlman, for whom she was judged
    on playing Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and Paganini Caprice No. 5

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♫  winning 3rd place in the Juilliard Pre-College Concerto Competition at 14 years old, playing
    Mozart Violin Concerto no. 3 with a one-page cadenza she composed herself

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♫ winning first chair (concertmistress) of the first violin section of the Pre-College Chamber Orchestra her first year in attendance, as well as several other top chairs (Principal 2nd, etc.)

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♫  among many other incredible experiences!

Caitlin made her first solo debut performing the Vivaldi Double Violin Concerto at 8 years old, with the Jupiter Symphony under the baton of the late Jens Nygaard.

Caitlin has performed in dozens of cities across the U.S., Europe, South America, and Asia. She has taken part in three orchestra tours as part of the Manhattan Symphonie Orchestra and with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra. While abroad she performed at major concert halls in cities including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Budapest, Berlin, Warsaw, Vienna, Bratislava, Prague, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, Hong Kong, and many more. In the U.S., she has performed at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Juilliard Theater, Peter J. Sharp Theater, Steinway Hall, Paul Hall, Morse Hall, among many others.
 

As co-founder of Sounds of Social Change (SOSC), a student-initiated Bard Trustee Leader Scholar project, she traveled to teach, mentor, and perform for and with young musicians living in poverty-stricken conditions in Cali, Colombia. The project’s mission is to use music education as a vehicle to empower youth and ignite change in communities, and earned the group a 2015 Davis Projects for Peace Prize.
 

Also a talented visual artist and an award-winning interior architecture student, Caitlin is several classes away from her B.A. of Interior Design from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), where every one of her major design projects have gained awards, competition wins (such as the International Interior Design Association student competition "Viewer's Choice" award), and additional accolades.

Caitlin decided to pause her studies at NJIT to teach and run FVA full-time in 2024 due to the great quantity of requests for mentorship and high-quality music lessons.

The Studio at FVA has now gained recognition for its impact and and is growing to serve a large number of violin students. Caitlin won distinguished awards for her teaching including the 2024 Primo Volta International Competition "Best Teacher" award, and Lessons.com 2024 "Top Teacher" award.

 

When she is not following her calling to help the next generation of creatives, Caitlin enjoys traveling, making art, and spending quality time with her loved ones.

Caitlin plays on a fine Christianus violin made in Germany in the 1800s, and rare J. Mathews bow.

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