Meredith Riley is a Canadian-American violinist from Ithaca, NY, currently residing in Alexandria, VA. She graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Music from the University of Texas at Austin, and completed her graduate studies under violinist Andrés Cárdenas at Carnegie Mellon University. Riley studied with Linda Case, Laura Bossert, and Margaret Pressley during her pre-college years.
For five years, Meredith was Associate Principal second violin for the Richmond Symphony in Richmond, VA. While in Graduate school, she was Principal second of the Erie Philharmonic, and she performed as acting concertmaster for the Johnstown Symphony. In recent years, she has free-lanced with Pittsburgh Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Philly pops!, Williamsburg Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra. She has been a member of Sphinx Virtuosi for nine National tours, recently serving as principal second. Meredith has also been a part of the Gateways Music Festival since 2022, participating in GMF's Carnegie Hall debut with Jon Batiste. In 2026, Riley will serve as concertmaster for Gateways’ collaboration of firebird. She joined the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC for a one year contract in the ‘22-’23 season, toured in the NSO’s European tour in ‘24,, and is currently serving another one year with them for the ‘25-‘26 season.
Riley’s solo performance experiences include solo appearances with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, New England String Orchestra, University of Texas Symphony Orchestras, and in 2022, the Wintergreen and Sunflower Festival Orchestras. Other awards include Young Artist for the Starling Delay Symposium at the Juilliard School, junior semi-finalist in the National Sphinx Competitions, second place in Young Texas Artists Competition. In 2022, and again in 2023, Meredith won first place in the strings division of the Sphinx Orchestra Partners for Auditions [SOPA] competition.
Meredith plays chamber music whenever she can and has appeared twice on the Smithsonian Chamber Players series, as well as on numerous CMSCVA events in Richmond. Her intensive chamber experiences include Wintergreen Music Festival, the Sunflower Music Festival, Toronto Summer Music Festival, NewPark Chamber Music Festival, Domaine Forget’s intensive chamber music program, Music by the Sea in Bamfield, BC, Steamboat Strings Music Festival Heifetz International Music Festival, Chautauqua MSFO, the International Music Academy of Plzen in Czech Republic, St. Lawrence String Seminar, the International Musical Enghien Encounters in Belgium, the Boston Festival Orchestra, and Encore School for Strings,
In 2021, Meredith was appointed as an Adjunct Professor of Violin at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. She also teaches a small number of private students in Alexandria and Richmond.
In her free time, Meredith loves to spend time with her family, and dogs. She is constantly sampling new hot sauces, singing and laughing loudly, and improvising vocally or on her violin.
