Noted for her “sharp and powerful performance” (La Scena Musicale), Caitlyn Koester can be found performing with today’s finest ensembles in early music. She is a frequent guest and collaborator with ensembles including Ruckus, ACRONYM, TENET, New York Baroque Incorporated, Musica Angelica, and Les Delices, among others. She was involved in the reopening concert of the Frick Collection with Jupiter Ensemble in May 2025. Her harpsichord duo, Koester & Figg, collaborates as a continuo pair for oratorio and chamber music across the country, regularly performing with ensembles including Spire Chamber Ensemble and I Cantori Carmel. Their unique programs of original four-hand harpsichord music have been presented by Berkshire Bach Society, Gotham Early Music Scene, and Death of Classical. Often involved with new music for old instruments, Caitlyn is a regular member of Doug Balliett’s ensemble Theotokos, who has premiered new works in concert series’ across the United States, and as residents of the Centre Culturel de Rencontre des Arts Florissant à Thiré. She can often be found performing in multi-disciplinary events with other performers and artists, including dance companies Dova Dance, Gibney Dance, and the Twyla Tharp Foundation. She performed in NY Fashion Week 2025 at the Purple Magazine x Dover Street Market celebration with designers Matières Fécales.

Caitlyn has music directed and led basso continuo sections for organizations including dell’Arte Opera, I Cantori Carmel, and Catapult Opera. Alongside violinist Shelby Yamin she was a Resident Artist at St. John’s Episcopal Church SF, where the two curated monthly concerts for the community in 2022 / 2023. She was is a member of The Diapason’s “20 Under 30” class of 2023. Her ensemble AKOYA is a grant recipient from Early Music America and the Canadian Council for the Arts, and released their premier studio album release with ATMA Classique in December 2023.

An avid educator, Caitlyn has served on faculty in the Music Theory and Music History departments at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and most recently in the Music Theory department at Stony Brook University. During her own education, she was lucky to fall under the mentorship of harpsichordist Joseph Gascho, who through his influence revealed a true love for playing the harpsichord and early repertoire. Caitlyn is a graduate of the Historical Performance programs at the Juilliard School and San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and studied both piano and harpsichord while pursuing a Bachelor of Music at the University of Michigan. She is ABD as a Doctorate in Music Arts at Stony Brook University where she studied with Arthur Haas.

Caitlyn has played under the direction of celebrated conductors and musicians including Monica Huggett, Rachel Podger, William Christie, Masaaki Suzuki, Robert Mealy, Alfredo Bernardini, and Jonathan Cohen, and studied with harpsichordists Peter Sykes, Richard Egarr, Béatrice Martin, Joseph Gascho, Corey Jamason, and Arthur Haas. She was the featured harpsichord soloist in San Francisco Conservatory’s performance of Bach’s D Major Harpsichord Concerto, and the Juilliard415 Orchestra’s performance of Bach’s 5th Brandenburg Concerto for Music Before 1800.

Growing up in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, Caitlyn surrounded herself with music in a multifaceted way from a young age. Throughout her childhood, piano lessons led to an enthrallment with learning the varied likes of Bach inventions, Elton John songs, and writing her own music. By high school, Caitlyn was dabbling in jazz and classical chamber music, and music directing local high school musicals. Her performances in Portland and Seattle with Ten Grands raised money for countless young people in the PNW to gain access to music lessons, and jumpstarted a passion for involvement in performance and education.

Believing music of the 17th and 18th centuries holds the gamut of human emotional experience, Caitlyn aspires to maintain a musical career as a harpsichordist, director and educator who exposes and nurtures a love of this repertoire among wider audiences in the United States. When not playing the harpsichord, Caitlyn enjoys going on adventures with her dog, a Great-Pyrenees-mix named Polyphony