Cha has taught at universities including Pepperdine University, California Lutheran University, and Idaho State University as an Assistant Professor of Music. She studied violin with Hyo Kang, Masuko Ushioda, Charles Castleman, and Chee-Yun Kim, and she was a Teaching Assistant of Charles Castleman at the Eastman School of Music.
Keum Hwa Cha, DMA has given numerous concerts as a soloist, chamber musician, and concertmaster in the United States and South Korea. She has had the privilege of performing with maestros David Effron, Robert Shaw, and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. As a concertmaster, Cha has performed with Chee-Yun, the Marcus Roberts Trio, Béla Fleck, and Time for Three. She has also 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 summer festival appearances include performances at the Kneisel Hall, the Castleman Quartet Program, the Philadelphia International Music Festival, and the Lydian String Quartet Festival.
Cha has taught at universities including Pepperdine University, California Lutheran University, and Idaho State University as an Assistant Professor of Music. She studied violin with Hyo Kang, Masuko Ushioda, Charles Castleman, and Chee-Yun Kim, and she was a Teaching Assistant of Charles Castleman at the Eastman School of Music. Her chamber music coaches were Lucy Stoltzman, Katherine Murdock, Eric Shumsky, James Dunham, Norman Fisher, Alan Harris, Andres Diaz, Stephen Drury, Malcolm Bilson, the Lydian String Quartet, and the Ying Quartet.
Cha’s students have won various concerto competitions and received multiple academic and music scholarships and accolades for their accomplishments. Her pre-collegiate students have served as principal players in youth orchestras and have been selected to play with All-State Honor Orchestras, the MTAC Convention Honors Ensemble, and the SCSBOA High School Honor Orchestra. Cha’s students have gone on to study at music schools and Ivy League universities including Indiana University, SMU Meadows School of the Arts, Brown, Cornell, and Yale.
Cha is a Suzuki violin teacher at the Colburn Suzuki Strings Program and is on the faculty of the Colburn Community School of Performing Arts, teaching violin, viola, and chamber music. She also coaches chamber music at the JCM (Junior Chamber Music – the Conejo Valley/San Fernando Valley branch) and offers the Certificate of Merit through the Music Teachers’ Association of California, and the ASTACAP through the American String Teachers Association.
Cha received her BM from the New England Conservatory, her MM and DMA from the Eastman School of Music, and her Artist Certificate from the Meadows School of the Arts.