Edith Yokley is a violinist from Chicago. She is a member of the Chicago Sinfonietta and Soulful Symphony in Baltimore. She has performed with such artists as CeeLo Green, J.Lo, Common, Barry White, Mos Def, Nancy Wilson, Andrea Bocelli, Sheila E., Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Donnie McClurkin, Richard Smallwood, Shirley Caesar, Dennis DeYoung of Styx, and Diana Ross and the Supremes. She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, and Late Night With Conan O'Brien as well as The Voice.
As a chamber musician, Ms. Yokley has performed all over the world, most notably in the Dry Tortugas, for the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College’s Performing Arts Concert Series in the Virgin Islands, and for the Mosaico Cultural Music Festival in Antigua, Guatemala. As a member of the Red Riding Hood Quartet in Chicago, she has performed for the American Ballet Theater’s return to the Auditorium Theater of Chicago, as well as for the Musician’s Club of Women Concert Series.
Ms. Yokley received her Master's Degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where she studied with Professor Paul Kantor as a violin fellow. While at the University of Michigan, she became a member of the university's Mariachi Troupe and subsequently began jazz improvisation. She has been featured on several CDs including Alicia Keys, Faith Evans, Common, Donnie McClurkin, and Joe, doing session work in both Chicago and New York. In 2009, Ms. Yokley started DJViolin.com, in which she and other musicians in her company improvise live with DJs. Miss Edith, as she is known in this realm, performs at Y, Cuvee, and other clubs and lounges in Chicago and the rest of the country.
Ms. Yokley is a contractor in New York and Chicago having contracted ensembles for such notable venues as the Apollo Theater and Rose Hall Jazz at Lincoln Center, as well as recording sessions in New York. She is the orchestral instructor for the Apostolic Church of God’s Youth Orchestra and a violin instructor at the Merit School of Music, while at the same time maintaining her own private studio.