Ben and Carol Auger Contemporary Music Ensemble

mble is coached by Linda Reichert, pianist and Artistic Director of the Philadelphia-based new music group, Network for New Music. This year's members are Daniel Cho (violin), Simon Housner (cello), and Linsy Wang (piano). Daniel Cho, 16, is a junior at Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia, PA. Having attended the Juilliard Precollege in New York, NY since middle school, Daniel has been playing the piano and the violin since age six, and has been composing since age three. In his years with music, Daniel has been recognized at numerous performance competitions and scholarships across the states, including the Summit Music Festival’s concerto competition; the Old York Road Symphony concerto competition; the Music Teachers’ National Association (MTNA) competitions; the Pottstown Rotary Club instrumental performance scholarship; the American Association for the Development of the Gifted and Talented (AADGT) string performance competition; and the Orfeo Music Festival’s music competition. Furthermore, Daniel has always taken the opportunity to perform frequently for those around him—including at Carnegie Hall (New York), Christ Church Cranbrook (Bloomfield Hills), the Academy of Music (Philadelphia), the Kimmel Center (Philadelphia), the Juilliard school (New York), and countless other churches, concert halls, retirement communities, and schools across the states. Aside from his solo work, Daniel is also an avid orchestra player and chamber musician: he currently plays as a first violinist in orchestra at the Juilliard Precollege and as the violinist of the merit-scholarship-funded Auger Contemporary music ensemble (a trio). Moreover, in the past he has served as the first violinist of the Trowbridge quartet, the concertmaster of Germantown Friends’ Upper School Orchestra, and the concertmaster of the Trowbridge chamber (strings) ensemble. All in all, music is Daniel’s main pursuit, and he’d be hard pressed to tell you what he might do for a living outside of it. Nevertheless, Daniel also loves writing—which, to him, has a kind of philosophical (and almost spiritual) meaning that is not unlike that of music.