Automating Instrument or Channel Changes?

Is it possible to automate instrument or channel changes in Cubase?
I am using two different VST instruments, one for a regular violin, and one for a muted violin.
Currently I have these two instruments on separate MIDI tracks and just leave one track silent while the other one is playing.
I could also do it using a single instance of Kontakt, and put the instruments on different channels.
But either way leads to a messy score.
Is there a better way to do this?