A versatile and expressive musician, Keum Hwa Cha has appeared throughout the United States and South Korea as a soloist and collaborative musician. As concertmaster, she has worked with Chee-Yun, the Marcus Roberts Trio, Béla Fleck, and Time for Three, and has had the privilege of performing under maestros including David Effron, Robert Shaw, and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski.
Cha has performed with the Cornell Contemporary Chamber Players, the Binghamton Philharmonic, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, the Han-Eum Chamber Ensemble, and the Seoul Tutti Ensemble. Her festival appearances include Kneisel Hall, the Castleman Quartet Program, the Philadelphia International Music Festival, the Ima Leete Hutchison Concert Series, and the Lydian String Quartet Festival.
Devoted to teaching and mentorship, Cha has taught at the University of Rochester, Pepperdine University, California Lutheran University, and Idaho State University, where she served as an Assistant Professor of Music. She is currently on the faculty of the Colburn Community School of Performing Arts, where she teaches violin, viola, and chamber music, and enjoys working with students as young as four years old in the Colburn Suzuki Strings Program. Her students have earned numerous accolades and won concerto competitions, including the ISCS Young Artist Competition and the CHICO Young Artists Series. Her pre-collegiate students have been selected to perform with the All-State Honor Orchestras, the MTAC Convention Honors Ensemble, and the SCSBOA Middle and High School Honor Orchestras, and many have pursued advanced studies at prestigious institutions such as the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts.
Born into a musical family, Cha grew up deeply inspired by her mother, one of South Korea’s leading violin pedagogues. After moving to the United States, she earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory and both Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Eastman School of Music. She also holds an Artist Certificate from the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU, where she studied on a full merit scholarship. Her primary teachers include Hyo Kang, Masuko Ushioda, Charles Castleman, and Chee-Yun, and she served as a teaching assistant to Charles Castleman at Eastman. She also studied chamber music with Lucy Stoltzman, Katherine Murdock, Eric Shumsky, James Dunham, Norman Fisher, Alan Harris, Andres Diaz, Stephen Drury, and the Ying Quartet, and trained in historical performance practice under Paul O’Dette and Malcolm Bilson.
Outside her classical career, Cha finds joy in serving through youth ministry and playing on the praise team at her church in Lake View Terrace.