Caitlyn Cantrell (Achilles) is a horn player, educator, and scholar performing in ensembles and venues across Colorado, California, and Texas. Most notably, she has performed with the Abilene Philharmonic, the Temple Symphony, the Trentino Festival Orchestra, the Berlin Opera Academy, the Littleton Symphony Orchestra, and the Denver Young Artists Orchestra.
A dedicated educator, Caitlyn serves as a Graduate Assistant at Baylor University's School of Music, where she lectures undergraduate students in core music history courses and assists with musicology faculty with various research and publishing projects. She also maintains a private horn studio, working with students across all levels of experience — work she finds deeply rewarding.
Caitlyn's scholarly interests lie at the intersection of performance practice, horn repertoire and history, and music education. Her current research, The Politics of Improvisation: Semiotic Meaning in the Jazz Performances of Irène Schweizer, explores questions of agency, identity, and musical meaning in improvised performance. She has presented her research at regional conferences and remains an active voice in academic discourse surrounding music and performance studies.
In the summers of 2021 and 2022, Caitlyn studied and performed in Switzerland and Germany with the Berlin Opera Academy, participating in the pit orchestra for productions of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Strauss' Die Fledermaus, Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel, and Puccini's Il Trittico. While in Europe, she had the privilege of studying with distinguished horn players Jörg Bruckner and Stefan De Leval Jezierski.
In the summer of 2023, Caitlyn participated in the Trentino Music Festival in San Martino di Castrozza, Italy, where she performed in orchestral concerts, chamber concerts, and masterclasses, as well as Britten's The Turn of the Screw under the direction of Maestro David Jackson of The Metropolitan Opera.
In the summers of 2024 and 2025, Caitlyn toured throughout Germany with eurobrass, performing as part of a twelve-person brass ensemble that draws an average of 4,000 listeners per year and continues to grow in prominence across Europe.
Caitlyn completed her Bachelor of Music in Horn Performance from the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver in 2021. She is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Performance and Musicology at Baylor University under the mentorship of Dr. Kristy Morrell.