Suzuki Violin and Viola. D.M.A. (Viola Performance and Literature), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. M.M. (Music Education), Boston University. Performer’s Diploma (Viola Performance), Southern Methodist University. B.M. magna cum laude (Viola Performance and Instrumental Music Education), The Catholic University of America. Registered Training through the Suzuki Association of the Americas (SAA), Violin Units 1 through 4. Viola studies with Elizabeth Freivogel, Lisa Ponton, Jutta Puchhammer-Sédillot, Tsuna Sakamoto, Martha Strongin Katz, Barbara Sudweeks, and Ásdís Valdimarsdóttir.Dr. Daniel McCarthy Howard is a violist and teacher of violin and viola. Daniel is a passionate educator with over 15 years of teaching experience, including in the private studio, in public school music programs, and at the university level. Most recently, Daniel taught at Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. While completing their doctoral degree, Daniel was the teaching assistant to Elizabeth Freivogel, violist of the Jupiter String Quartet. In addition to their undergraduate and graduate studies, Daniel completed Registered Training through the Suzuki Association of the Americas (SAA) at the Chicago and Oregon Suzuki Institutes, studying with Vera McCoy-Sulentic and Edmund Sprunger. Daniel is an active member of the SAA, received the David Einfeldt Memorial Scholarship in 2022, and plans to pursue further training in Suzuki pedagogy.
Daniel has taught masterclasses at St. Norbert College, Southern Methodist University, and El Núcleo de Pichincha de la CCE y Bardo Ecuador. Daniel was an Orchestra Director in Fairfax County Public Schools (VA) for four years, and also taught in Plano Independent School District (TX) as a private instructor. Their former students continue music studies at universities and conservatories throughout the United States.
Their versatile performance career includes chamber music collaborations with members of the Borromeo, Emerson, Escher, and Miró quartets, and as part of the Castleman Quartet Program. Daniel has performed in orchestras throughout the United States and Canada, including the Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, the Apollo Orchestra, and Sinfonia da Camera, among others. Additional performances include concerts at Bay View Music Festival, the Embassy of Austria, the New Music for Strings Festival (Iceland), Orford Musique, the Residences of the Ambassadors to Romania and Portugal, Theresienstadt, and the White House. In 2019, they were a prize winner in the String Division Solo Competition at the Master Players Festival.