Daniel Ketter, born and raised in Kansas City, specializes in performance of contemporary and classical chamber music, and has performed extensively for national and international tours with groups including American Wild Ensemble, Opus 76 String Quartet, Ensemble Alla Balena, and Cellax Duo, and has been featured as as a concerto soloist with Kansas City Civic Orchestra, Eastman Wind Orchestra, Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Outburst Chamber Orchestra, among others. 

Daniel Ketter is Co-Director and cellist of American Wild Ensemble, which celebrates the people and places that define American communities with new music. In 2018, American Wild Ensemble released a two-hour album of eleven original works on the ArtistShare label, Music in the American Wild, including an hour-long video album available on YouTube. With support from the National Endowment for the Arts, these works were commissioned and performed for a national tour of 25 performances in seven national parks celebrating the centennial of the National Park Service in 2016. AWE's second album, Duos and Trios, released on New Focus Recordings, was named a Top 10 Album of 2022 by Rochester City Magazine, who described the album as "a winning combination of accessible and adventurous" performed "with sensitivity and precision" and "the perfect album for those listeners wanting to dip their toes into experimental sounds." Since 2016, AWE has collaborated with ten different national parks and historic sites and commissioned and premiered over 35 new chamber music works for grant-funded projects celebrating the US National Park Service, 19th Amendment Centennial, Great Lakes Region, Frederick Law Olmstead Centennial, and programs promoting children’s literacy with support from National Endowment for the Arts, Washington’s National Park Fund, Chamber Music America, Mid- America Arts Alliance, The Paul R. Judy Center for Applied Research, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Missouri State University, Missouri Humanities Council, Missouri Arts Council, and New Music USA. American Wild Ensemble leads a yearly Composition Symposium for students hosted by University of Missouri – Kansas City.

As an ardent supporter of contemporary music, in 2021, Daniel founded the annual Cello Teaching Repertoire Consortium, with the mission to supplement traditional cello student repertoire with the commission of new pedagogical concert works and etudes representing diverse musical styles and cultural backgrounds. This project has commissioned several new works for cello students supported by cello teachers across the country, featured in workshops and performed by students at the Eastman Cello Institute, and presented at American String Teachers Association's 2022 and 2024 national conferences.

From 2018-2026 Daniel served as faculty at Missouri State University, where he taught courses in cello, chamber music, and music theory, and teaching for the annual Missouri State University String Fling.

In 2020, Daniel completed a Ph.D. in Music Theory at Eastman School of Music, and he has served as Co-Chair for Society for Music Theory’s Performance and Analysis Interest Group. His research interests include essential voices in Schenkerian theory and performance and analysis, and he has presented research at conferences for Music Theory Society of New York State, Society for Music Theory, and at the Sixth International Schenker Symposium.

In 2017 Daniel completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Eastman School of Music. Daniel has a MM in cello performance and pedagogy from Peabody Conservatory and graduated with high distinction from both Eastman School of Music (BM ’10, Applied Music - Cello) and from University of Rochester (BA ’10, Mathematics). Daniel completed a MBA in 2024 at Missouri State University with a Certificate in Finance and is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma.

Daniel plays a cello made by H. C. Silvestre c. 1870 in Lyon, France.