Dr. Caiti Beth McKinney

Adjunct | French Horn

Dr. Caiti Beth McKinney is a classically trained horn player, educator, and researcher currently based out of Miami, FL. A cross-genre instrumentalist, she does not discriminate when it comes to performance styles. Instead, her heart truly lies in both playing and advocating for the performance of compositions by historically marginalized composers; as such, Caiti Beth is the founder of REPresent, an online catalogue (found here) of these works for horn. This has now evolved into the bi-weekly REPresent: The Podcast, where Caiti Beth interviews composers from such backgrounds about their compositions for the horn (available now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify). She also writes a recurring column for the International Horn Society’s Horn and More electronic newsletter where she features underrepresented composers and their music.

Originally from South Texas, Caiti Beth attended Texas Christian University for her undergraduate education, earning both a Bachelor of Music in Performance and a Bachelor of Arts in History. As an Honors Graduate, she authored a thesis paper entitled, “ExtendedTechniques on Horn and Their Use in Contemporary Film.” Caiti Beth received her MM in Horn Performance from Indiana University where she studied under Dale Clevenger, and her doctoral performance degree at the University of Miami under the instruction of Richard Todd. Her dissertation entitled “In the Forest I Wound My Horn: Studies in the Gender Semiotics of Horn in Classical and Romantic Orchestral Literature,” available to read here, examines how instrumentation can convey gendered meanings in symphonic works.

During a typical week, Caiti Beth can be found playing anything from orchestral works to jazz sets. She has performed with The Who (North American Tour 2022), the Palm Beach Symphony, The Venice Symphony, Gulf Shore Opera, South Florida Symphony, Boca Arts Festival Orchestra, and the Miami Lyric Opera, among others. Caiti Beth has also recorded for Bad Bunny’s 2023 Coachella appearance, and performed with soloists such as Joshua Bell and Renee Fleming.