CHAMBER MUSIC MASTERCLASS

FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2026 FROM 6:00-7:30PM

West Ashley Theatre Center, 1401 Sam Rittenberg Blvd. #4A, West Ashley (Please use entrance located between Stella Nails and Fleet Feet in the Ashley Landing Shopping Center)

As part of CMC’s Youth Chamber Music Initiative, we are pleased to present a masterclass by violinist Daniel Ching and cellist Allan Rafferty.

This class is free and open to the public.  Please register to attend by clicking HERE so we can send you parking and entrance information.

This project is funded in part by the South Carolina Arts Commission which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

PROGRAM AND PARTICIPANTS

Rossini Quartet No. 2 in A Major, mvt. 1: Evan Baker and Annabella Cusatis, violins; Tim O’Malley, substitute cello; Pablo Perez, bass

Schubert Quartettsatz c-Moll D 703: Ava Whitener (violin 1)/Elijah Liu (violin 2)/Callie Williams (viola)/ Myles Owens-Walker (cello)

Alan Rafferty (cello) has firmly established himself as a preeminent cellist, educator, arts leader, and entrepreneur. He currently holds the position of Associate Professor and educator of Cello at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. In addition, he is a member of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and has been a regular performer on the CSO Chamber Players Series and narrator of the Education Concerts.  Mr. Rafferty made his solo debut with orchestra at the age of 16 and has been a featured soloist on numerous occasions since.  He can be heard on recordings for Telarc, Sono Luminus, C.R., and WGUC radio station. As a chamber musician, Mr. Rafferty regularly collaborates with the likes of Leon Fleisher, Cho-Liang Lin, and the Miró Quartet, to name a few.  In the summers, he is the Artistic Director of the Ascent International Chamber Music Festival.  Alan is on the faculty of the Sphinx Organization National Alliance for Audition Support Intensive at the New World Symphony, International Cello Institute, and a return to the Interlochen Arts Camp. Other summer festival engagements have included Meadowmount, Madeline Island, Green Mountain, Brancaleoni (Italy), Aria, the Aronson Cello Festival, and the Great Wall International Music Academy in Beijing. Each January, he goes to Brazil as a core artist-faculty member of the Festival de Music de Santa Catarina.   Mr. Rafferty holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Northwestern University. His primary studies were with Hans Jorgen Jensen, Alan Harris, Merry Peckham, Richard Weiss, and Anne Cole. He and his wife, Dr. Sarah Kim, were recently named the 2016 Ohio String Teachers Association Studio Teachers of the Year. ascentmusic.org.

Daniel Ching, a founding member of the Miró Quartet, began his violin studies at the age of 3 under tutelage of his father. At age 5, he entered the San Francisco Conservatory Preparatory Division on a full twelve‐year scholarship, where he studied violin with Serban Rusu and Zaven Melikian, and chamber music with Susan Bates. At the age of 10, Daniel was first introduced to string quartets.A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Daniel studied violin with Kathleen Winkler, Roland and Almita Vamos, and conducting with Robert Spano and Peter Jaffe. He completed his Masters degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with former Cleveland Quartet violinist Donald Weilerstein. He also studied recording engineering and production with Thomas Knab of Telarc, and subsequently engineered the Miró Quartet’s first promotional disc. Daniel is on faculty at the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches private violin students and coaches chamber music. He concurrently maintains an active international touring schedule as a member of the Miró Quartet.

Daniel is a discerning connoisseur of all things cinematic and electronic. Before he became a busy parent, Daniel was an avid skier and a dedicated reader of science fiction—he looks forward to returning to those passions, some day. In his free time, Daniel enjoys hosting happy hours with friends and lounging at home with his wife Sandy, their two sons, and two cats.