Keum Hwa Cha is a violinist, violist and educator who has given numerous concerts as a soloist, chamber musician and concertmaster in the United States and in South Korea. Dr. Cha taught at Idaho State University as an Assistant Professor of Music, and she was an Adjunct Professor at the Pepperdine University. While at ISU, she initiated the string ensemble program and established the string quartet studies. She was recognized as a successful director of the ISU Chamber Orchestra and recruited highly qualified string students to the university. She has worked closely with public school music directors and youth orchestras and has given frequent master classes to high schools and colleges. She has appeared as a presenter at IMEA Conferences and has served as a judge in major competitions in Idaho. Her students have received academic and music scholarships and various accolades for their accomplishments. One of her students recently won the Idaho State-Civic Symphony Young Artist Competition. Her pre-collegiate students have served as principal players in youth orchestras and have been selected to play with All-State Honor Orchestras. Dr. Cha served as a director of the string division of the ISU Summer Institute for Piano and Strings and provided extensive outreach by recruiting talented musicians from surrounding communities.

Prior to her appointment at Idaho State University, Dr. Cha taught at Chung-Ang University, Dankook University, Dongduk Women’s University, and Sungshin Women’s University in South Korea and the University of Rochester. Dr. Cha was a Teaching Assistant of Charles Castleman at the Eastman School of Music while pursuing her doctoral degree. Dr. Cha has had the privilege of performing with maestros David Effron, Robert Shaw and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. As a concertmaster, she has performed with Chee-Yun, the Marcus Roberts Trio, Béla Fleck and Time for Three. Her recent performing highlights include a violin recital of French music, Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat, and Erwin Stein’s chamber edition of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. She has performed with the ISU Chamber Jazz Ensemble and as a soloist with the ISU Wind Ensemble. 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. She has served as concertmaster of the Idaho-State Civic Symphony and the Meadows Symphony Orchestra. Her summer festival appearances include performances at Kneisel Hall, the Castelman Quartet Program, the Philadelphia International Music Festival and the Lydian String Quartet Festival. Dr. Cha has extensive experience in historical performance practice, studying with Paul O’Dette at Eastman and Malcolm Bilson in Ithaca, NY. She studied violin with Hyo Kang, Masuko Ushioda, Charles Castleman, and Chee-Yun Kim. She studied chamber music with Lucy Stoltzman, Katherine Murdock, Eric Shumsky, James Dunham, Norman Fisher, Alan Harris, Andres Diaz, Stephen Drury, Lydian String Quartet and Ying Quartet. Dr. Cha is the co-founder and artistic director of Project Musica, which debuted in South Korea in 2016.

Dr. Cha is a member of Music Teachers’ Association of California (MTAC) and Suzuki Association of the Americas.