Danielle Cho joined as Assistant Principal Cellist of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra in 2021.

As a co-founder of Sound Impact, she has dedicated much of her time to bringing music into schools, juvenile detention centers and international communities for greater social impact. Danielle has led Sound Impact’s international programs in Costa Rica and Panama, including its cultural exchange program. This passion was instilled in her after studying in Barcelona as a Fulbright Scholar, after which she was invited to play with the Orquesta de la Comunitat Valencia where she toured internationally under Lorin Maazel and Zubin Mehta. She was also a featured soloist at the 2014 TedxFulbright Conference and the first Fulbright alumni to be selected to serve on two missions with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas (YOA) Global Leaders Program in Argentina and Haiti.

Highlights of Danielle’s career have been solo appearances with the Erie Chamber Orchestra and the Festival Filharmonica Juvenil (Argentina) and festival appearances in Europe and the US including IMS Prussia Cove, Spoleto, Music in May, the Holland Music Sessions, Taos, Sarasota, and Schleswig-Holstein. Additionally, Danielle performs regularly with the American Pops Orchestra, the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra.

Passionate about teaching, Danielle holds an active private studio in the Washington DC area. Her students have been principal cellists of the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra and All-State Virginia Orchestra and have gone on to study at top conservatories like Oberlin, Peabody and Shenandoah Conservatory.

She holds degrees from the University of Southern California and the New England Conservatory where her principal teachers have been Ronald Leonard, Natasha Brofsky and Lluís Claret.

In her spare time, Danielle enjoys photography, hiking and boxing.