The Young Eight - Guest Artists

Guest Artists and Coaches

Daniel Ching, violin

Daniel Ching, a founding member of the Miró String Quartet, spent his childhood years in the San Francisco area, and began playing the violin under the guidance of his father at age 3. 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. As a student at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music he studied violin with Kathleen Winkler, Roland and Almita Vamos, and conducting with Robert Spano and Peter Jaffe. He holds his Master of Music from 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 a discerning connoisseur of all things electronic, an avid skier and tennis player, and a dedicated reader of science fiction. Daniel serves as Senior Lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin.

Herbert Greenberg, violin

Herbert Greenberg was born in Philadelphia where his teachers included Jascha Brodsky and Ivan Galamian. Further studies at Indiana University with Josef Gingold led to a Performer's Certificate. Mr. Greenberg has been a member of the Minnesota Orchestra, associate concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony and from 1981 to 2001 served as concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Having performed over 45 concerti from the Baroque to present day American composers such as Adams and Rouse, Mr. Greenberg has collaborated with many of the worlds leading conductors including Steinberg, Previn, Slatkin, Levi, Comissiona, Silverstein, Herbig, Vonk, Zukerman and Zinman. Many of his performances have been broadcast on NPR, and he was featured in Strauss' Ein Heldenleben on National television for the opening concert at Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore.

Mr. Greenberg has concertized throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He has toured with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra of Denmark and has led the New Arts Ensemble of Taipai as violinist/conductor. Mr. Greenberg was the first American invited to serve as the concertmaster for the Japan Virtuoso Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble consisting of concertmasters and first chair players from Japan. He has also been a guest concertmaster of the Oregon, Houston, St. Louis and Bergen Symphony Orchestras. In Pittsburgh he was a founding member of the Previn-Greenberg-Williams Trio and in Baltimore, a founding member of the Baltimore String Quartet. He has collaborated in chamber music with a wide variety of artists which include Frager, Gingold, Kalichstein, Laredo, Ma, Primrose, Silverstein and Zukerman.

Mr. Greenberg participates in many of the nations leading music festivals and seminars. Currently, he is affiliated with the New York String Seminar, the Blossom Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival where he is concertmaster of the Festival Orchestra. Last summer at Aspen, Mr. Greenberg performed the Berg Violin Concerto with the Aspen Academy Orchestra and the Walton Sonata for Violin and Piano with pianist Ann Schein. Together, they recorded the Walton Sonata for Delos. This past summer Mr. Greenberg performed as a guest soloist at a special concert at the Blossom Music Festival honoring Louis Lane, former resident conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra and founding associate director of the Blossom Music Festival. Mr. Greenberg participated as a student at the first Blossom Festival in 1968.

He is a member of the violin faculty at the Peabody Conservatory where many of his former students occupy positions in major symphony orchestras throughout the world. Mr. Greenberg has recorded for Telarc, Argo, and Delos and plays the Jean Becker Stradivarius, dated 1685.

Sandy Yamamoto, violin

Violinist Satoko (Sandy) Yamamoto, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has been a member of the Miró String Quartet since 1996. As a member of the Quartet, she enjoys an active international touring schedule and performs in some of the world's most recognized concert venues.

At age 11, Sandy made her solo debut with the North Carolina Symphony and has since performed with various orchestras including the Winston Salem Symphony, the Durham Symphony, the Asheville Symphony Orchestra, the International Music Program Orchestra, and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra. At age 13, she won the North Carolina National Bank Music Competition, which gave her a full scholarship to attend the North Carolina School of the Arts for high school to study with Elaine Richey. She continued her studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music where she earned both her Bachelor and her Masters degrees studying with Donald Weilerstein and David Cerone. She has performed to great acclaim in venues across Europe and the United States, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fischer Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Sandy teaches both violin and chamber music at the University of Texas at Austin. Even amidst her hectic touring, she enjoys time at home with her husband Daniel Ching (also a member of the Miró String Quartet) and their two cats, Pon and Poko.