
The title of Thomas Wolfe’s novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, may apply to some people but certainly not to Caitlyn Lynch. The stellar violist, who is a member of the Aeolus String Quartet and also the co-Artistic Director of A Far Cry chamber orchestra, loves to return to Oregon to work with high school and college students and raise funds so that underprivileged youth in the Salem-Keizer School District. To that end, Lynch founded Project Chamber Music: Willamette Valley, a unique program that has improved and inspired young musicians in and around her hometown. (Read ArtsWatch’s 2023 profile feature about Lynch and the project.)
Although she now lives in Boston, Lynch grew up in Salem where she participated in school music program and often attended the Young Artists and Musicians camp, which she called a life changing experience. In her sophomore year at South Salem High School, she started playing with the Portland Youth Philharmonic’s Young String Ensemble and made the decision to switch from violin to viola.

“We were playing the third Brandenburg concerto, and the orchestra had only one violist,” recalled Lynch during a Zoom call. “But the Brandenburg requires three. Adam Flatt, the conductor at the time – and a violist himself – said that he thought I was a good listener and therefore would make a great chamber music violist …and asked if I would be willing to play viola in the Brandenburg. I fell in love with the rich, warm sonority of the viola, and the rest is history!”
Lynch moved up through the ranks of the PYP organization, culminating with the Portland Youth Philharmonic under Hew Edwards. Then she became even more focused on the viola, and went to the Cleveland Institute of Music for her Bachelors and to The Juilliard School for her Masters. She has collaborated with a wider range of artists from Itzhak Perlman to Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and ensembles that include the Cleveland Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, with members of the Tokyo, Cleveland, Juilliard, and Cavani Quartets, and members of the Weilerstein Trio. She also performed with the Experiential Orchestra on the recording of Ethel Smyth’s The Prison, which won a Grammy in 2021.
But despite the success as a professional violist and the abundance of opportunities on the East Coast, Lynch had a deep desire to give back to the community that nurtured her talent. She talked with Mary Lou Boderman, her former band teacher at South Salem High School and also the Coordinator of Music and Drama for the Salem-Keizer School District before she retired. Encouraged by Boderman, Lynch organized the Project Chamber Music (PCM) in 2016 with the intent to help young musicians. So, every autumn, PCM becomes a vehicle in which Lynch and a group of high-caliber professional colleagues go the schools and universities in a series of workshops.
“We think of it as an exchange,” said Lynch. “We perform and share music with them. They share music with us. We workshop lots of pieces. We work on a variety of things that we feel is most helpful for them, then we end with a question-and-answer session. They can ask anything that their heart desires: technique, practice, what a professional does, and all sorts of questions about music.”

Along the way, Lynch emphasizes that making music and playing with others teaches life skills.
“One of the most valuable parts of the students working with us in rehearsals is that music is so much more than technique and playing things perfectly,” said Lynch. “Those things are important, but another important aspect is listening, deep empathy, figuring out how to take different approaches and make them work together with a shared goal in mind. You can grow as a person when working with others.”
Lynch has an effervescent personality that is contagious. Her enthusiasm for music can be felt immediately – even when she is battling a cold during a Zoom call. She is one of those rare birds who exudes music and can convey it in words and with her playing.

Boderman recalled the first year that Lynch gave a clinic in front of a student assembly at Leslie Middle School in Salem, and was immediately impressed by how Lynch and her colleagues could give a clinic. “She connects with the kids, and they are totally captivated,” remarked Boderman. “It was terrific. I was nervous because none of us knew how it was going to go. The kids just eat it up!”
This year, Lynch kicked off a series of PCM events with three colleagues with impeccable credentials: violinist Rachel Lee Priday, cellist Bion Tsang, and pianist Julio Elizalde. Priday is Assistant Professor of Violin at the University of Washington School of Music. Tsang is Professor of Cello and Division Head of Strings at the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin. Elizalde teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he is associate chair of strings and piano chamber music.
The foursome had a whirlwind of a schedule. Over a four-day stretch, they worked with students at the University of Oregon, Portland State University, the Junior Orchestra of Yamhill County, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, North Salem High School, McNary High School, and Parrish Middle School.

Sean Williams, who teaches four orchestras and music theory at McNary High School, loved how Lynch worked with the school’s honors string orchestra.
“Caitlin fills the room with her joy of music making and working with the students,” Williams said. “We usually work through some pieces that we have been rehearsing for our upcoming concert, but we started with a Mozart piece and she started digging into that. I let her go with it. She offers so much good insight and material in terms of practice strategies, rehearsal strategies, the way the musicians connect with each other, and to create a story for the music that they are performing. She got into some of the technical details so that the kids could play Mozart with grace and refinement. We spent 75 minutes on it, and kids stayed focused. It was great!”
In addition to working with students, Lynch and her colleagues performed piano quartets by Mozart and Brahms (October 19) at the Hudson Concert Hall on the campus of Willamette University (read about that concert here). The concert is an annual fundraiser in which all of the proceeds will be used to provide private lessons for students in the Salem-Keizer school district who are unable to afford them. To date, PCM has raised over $25,000 for this effort.

“We are rolling out a program this fall that will allow students to apply for lessons that will be supported by the funds raised,” wrote Stephen Lytle, Coordinator of Music and Drama for the Salem-Keizer School District. “It has taken a little while to build up a foundation in the account but we are excited to begin. We are in the process of identifying instructors that will deliver the lessons and working with orchestra directors to recruit students to apply for the lessons.”
“Lessons are a critical component for the advancing musician,” added Lytle. “The ability to work exclusively 1:1 or in a very small group allows for much more individualized training and is a crucial part of any student’s development if they are serious about continuing their development and are also looking to advance their study at the collegiate level.”
Now that’s a worthwhile endeavor that will improve the lives of students! Hats off to Lynch and the PCM program! Maybe other professionals might consider something similar for their hometowns – that would bolster music education throughout the nation.

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