Education

FAMILY CONCERTS

Music lovers of all ages delight in The Knights’ family-friendly performances that celebrate world-class music in an engaging, interactive setting. In programs created and hosted by Artist Leader for Education and cellist Caitlin Sullivan, The Knights perform excerpts from well-known works and contemporary compositions alongside audience participation activities that highlight musical details and showcase the way instruments can tell a story. In these accessible performances, children and their families discover the limitless imaginative possibilities that exist in classical music.

Recent family concerts have been organized in partnership with WQXR’s Classical Kids Fair, the Clark Art Institute, and Lighthouse Works.

Click the link below to read a full summary of recent family concerts and to inquire about family programming partnerships.

Family concerts

Education Partner: New York Philharmonic Very Young Composers

In 2024 and 2025, The Knights have served as the Education Partner for the New York Philharmonic's Very Young Composers program. Knights musicians engage with the VYC students through class visits, instrument demonstrations, and informal performances to provide guidance and feedback on their compositions. Each of the two Spring partnerships culminated in a recording session at WQXR of selected student compositions.

Learn more

Hear vyc 2025 student pieces

hear vyc 2024 student pieces

listen to vyc 2025 on Wqxr

listen to vyc 2024 on wqxr

Education partner: USDAN summer camp for the arts

From 2020-2023, musicians from The Knights were artists-in-residence at Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts on Long Island.

In August 2025 Knights musicians returned to USDAN, where they performed for over 1,000 students, workshopped twelve student compositions, and led sectional classes with the string orchestra.

Learn more

LISTEN TO selected 2025 USDAN STUDENT PIECES

Rhapsody at USDAN (2023)

Bodies of water (2022)

At their 2023 residency at Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts on Long Island in 2023, musicians from The Knights brought together Usdan students in Composition, Creative Writing, and Painting & Drawing around the theme of Rhapsody. The project culminated in a performance; a rhapsodic quilt of songs, visual art, and poetry celebrating the diverse viewpoints, backgrounds, and imaginations of the Usdan students.

In 2022, The Knights joined forces with Ocean Music Action and choreographer & dancer Maile Okamura to mentor Usdan’s young artists and collaboratively create a project entitled Bodies of Water, which investigated human beings’ deep and visceral connection to water.

Past Projects

Education partner: the Chamber Music Center of New York

In June 2022, Associate Conductor Michael P. Atkinson led Knights musicians and students from the Chamber Music Center of New York in a day of side-by-side music-making, culminating in a concert performance for families and friends.

Chamber Music Center of New York

Meet Caitlin Sullivan, our artist leader for Education programming

One of the earliest graduates of Carnegie Hall's Ensemble Connect fellowship in 2009, Caitlin discovered her passion for arts advocacy, and has been nurturing her skill for designing interactive concert experiences ever since.

For more than 15 years, Caitlin has been facilitating performance environments that encourage personal connections to classical music and beyond. She has been a visitor to schools, universities, hospitals, retirement homes, correctional facilities, museums, and concert spaces as a performer and teaching artist for numerous ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, IRIS Orchestra, and the affiliate ensemble of Carnegie Hall, Decoda.

While a member of Decoda, Caitlin designed and led bespoke interactive performances for school children and adult audiences alike across the US, UK, Japan, and South Africa, as well as musical workshops for college students in the US and UK. A longtime member of IRIS Orchestra, she has led many interactive chamber music performances for K-12 students throughout the greater Memphis area.

Closer to home, Caitlin regularly visited many rural school districts throughout the Adirondack region of New York State to give workshops and interactive performances while working alongside members of The Learning Arts. During her two-year fellowship with Ensemble Connect, Caitlin was a teaching artist at PS 153 in Harlem, where she co-designed a culminating project called the MUSIC (Musically Uniting Students in Correspondence) Exchange: a mentorship side-by-side performance of students and professional musicians, including a penpal letter exchange program between students and their music mentors.