violin as accompaniment, throughout North Dakota, including some of the locations the expedition stopped at. Memphis's Tri-State Defender deemed the work an "epic success"; its review of the "enthusiastically received" work noted that "The years of preparation, study, writing, composing, editing and creating that were required to produce this panoramic and worthy opera is mind-boggling." The review found the score "monumental", "masterful", "magnificent and often haunting". His next opera, an adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, is an entirely a cappella work, with the musical accompaniment, including the percussion, sung by a "voicestra" of 15 to 20 voices. The inspiration for the work came when he was invited to become the vocal coach for DeltaCappella, a contemporary a cappella group founded in Memphis in 2007. Ching retrospectively noted, "Their devotion to detail and their joy of singing was palpable and infectious. There was something jaw-droppingly giddy about the whole enterprise. With no reeds, no mouthpieces, no strings, no sticks, the variety of sounds they were capable of making was virtually unlimited. By the end of my first rehearsal with them I was hooked and eager to apply this new sonic palette to opera." After conducting Marcus Hummon's Shakespeare-filled Surrender Road, he reflected that "with its potential for three sonic worlds inhabited by the Athenians, the fairies, the rude mechanicals, A Midsummer Night’s Dream seemed a perfect vehicle for exploring a colorful prism of a cappella styles." Ching has noted that his eclectic compositional style was influenced by what Gershwin was trying to accomplish in Porgy and Bess: "He was writing something that surfs between pop and opera. Many people love Porgy, but nobody ever tries to write an opera like it. I wanted to write accessible and tuneful music, yet very modern." The opera debuted in 2011 at Playhouse on the Square, in collaboration with Opera Memphis, with roles sung by musical-theater singers and professional opera singers. It was also performed at OperaHub in Boston in 2012. The Wall Street Journal praised A Midsummer Night's Dream, stating that "Ching's remarkably inventive opera is a celebration of what voices can do and still, with the exception of a few startling vocal percussion effects, sound like voices." The review noted Ching's "seamless changes in tone, ... fine sense of pacing and skill with ensemble writing" and "tonal and tuneful vocal lines ... written for maximum intelligibility". The reviewer found the voicestra's