- Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma (b. October 7, 1955) is a French-born American cellist of world renown and the winner of multiple Grammy Awards.
- Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich KBE, (March 27 1927 - April 27 2007), known to close friends as “Slava”, was a cellist and conductor. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. He was one of the greatest cellists of the twentieth century.
- Pablo Casals
Pau Carles Salvador Casals i Defilló, best known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a virtuoso Catalan Spanish cellist and later conductor. He made many recordings throughout his career, of solo, chamber, and orchestral music, also as conductor, but Casals is perhaps best remembered for the recording of the "Bach: Cello Suites" he made from 1936 to 1939.
- Isaac Stern
Isaac Stern was one of the finest violin virtuosi of the twentieth century. Born in Kremenetz, Ukraine on July 21, 1920, Isaac Stern was ten months old when his family moved to San Francisco. He received his first music lessons from his mother before enrolling at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1928. He studied there until 1931, then studied privately with Louis Persinger.
- Matt Haimovitz
Matt Haimovitz (born 1970) is an Israeli-born cellist now based in the United States and Canada. He is known not only for his outstanding technical and musical skill, but also for his highly unusual concert career and repertoire choices. Haimovitz is as likely to be found playing Bach in a pizzeria or jazz club as in a concert hall, and is as likely to be performing in a small town in the American Midwest or South as in one of the major musical centers.
- Lynn Harrell
Lynn Harrell (born January 30, 1944) is an American classical cellist. Harrell was born in New York of musician parents; his father was the distinguished baritone Mack Harrell and his mother, Marjorie Fulton, was a violinist. At the age of eight he decided to learn to play the cello. When Lynn was 12, his family moved to Dallas, Texas, where Lynn studied with Lev Aronson.
- Pinchas Zukerman
Pinchas Zukerman is a noted Israeli violinist, violist, and conductor who was appointed Music Director of Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra in April 1998. Zukerman was born in Tel Aviv. He left for the United States and studied at the Juilliard School. He made his New York début in 1963. From 1980 to 1987 he was the director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in Minnesota. He married actress Tuesday Weld in 1985 but they divorced in 1998.
- Steven Isserlis
Steven Isserlis (born December 19 1958, London) is one of the most prominent living cellists. He is notable for his diverse repertoire, distinctive sound and total command of phrasing. He studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and was also highly influneced by the great iconoclast of Russian cello playing, Daniil Shafran. Isserlis plays both as soloist and chamber musician and has rediscovered many previously neglected works.
- David Darling
David Darling (born March 3, 1941) is a cellist and composer. He has performed and recorded with artists such as Bobby McFerrin and Spyro Gyra in addition to putting out several solo and small ensemble albums as well as albums of his compositions. Born in Elkhart, Indiana, Darling began studying cello at 10 and continued on to earn bachelor's and master's degrees in music education from Indiana University.
- Mischa Maisky
Mischa Maisky (born January 10, 1948 in Riga) is a celebrated cellist who won 6th Prize at the Moscow International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1966. Maisky began studies with Mstislav Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatory whilst pursuing a concert career throughout the Soviet Union. In 1970, he was imprisoned in a labor camp near Gorky for 18 months. After his release, he emigrated to Israel to avoid further persecution by the Soviet regime.
- Gregor Piatigorsky
Gregor Piatigorsky was a Ukrainian cellist well known in his time. Gregor Piatigorsky, or occasionally known as "Grisha," was born in Ekaterinoslav and studied violin and piano with his father as a child. After seeing and hearing the cello, he determined to become a cellist and constructed a play cello with two sticks. He was given a real cello when he was seven. He won a scholarship to the Moscow Conservatory, …
- Jacqueline du Pré
Jacqueline Mary du Pré, O.B.E. (January 26, 1945 - October 19, 1987), was a British cellist, today acknowledged as one of the greatest exponents of the instrument. She is particularly associated with the Elgar Cello Concerto in E Minor; her interpretation of this work has been described as "definitive" and "legendary."
- Carrie Pierce
- Karlos Rodriguez
- Arthur Russell
Charles Arthur Russell Jr. (1952 - April 4, 1992) was an American cellist, composer, singer, and disco artist. While he found the most success as a dance music artist, Russell's career bridged New York's downtown, rock, and dance music scenes; his collaborators ranged from Philip Glass to David Byrne to Nicky Siano. Relatively unknown during his life, a series of reissues and posthumous releases has raised his profile in recent years.
- Leonard Rose
Leonard Rose (July 27, 1918 - November 16, 1984) is considered one of the greatest American cellists of the 20th century. Born in Washington, D.C., Rose took lessons from Walter Grossman, Frank Miller and Felix Salmond and after completing his studies at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music at age 20, he joined Arturo Toscanini's NBC Symphony Orchestra, and almost immediately became associate principal.
- Alisa Weilerstein
American cellist Alisa Weilerstein has attracted widespread attention for playing that combines a natural virtuosic command and technical precision with impassioned musicianship. At 26 years old, she is already a veteran on the classical music scene having performed with the nation's top orchestras, given recitals in music capitals throughout the U.S. and Europe, and having regularly appeared at prestigious festivals.
- Harvey Shapiro
Harvey Shapiro (b. 1911) is a New York-born American cellist of world renown.
- Truls Mørk
Truls Otterbech Mørk is a Norwegian cellist. He was born in Bergen, Norway, the child of two professional musicians, his father a cellist and his mother a pianist. His mother began teaching him the piano when he was seven. He also played the violin, but soon switched to the cello, taking lessons from his father. Mørk started studying with Frans Helmerson at 17 at the renowned Edsberg Music Institute. An admirer of Mstislav Rostropovich and the Russian school of cello, …
- Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach (20 June 1819 - 5 October 1880) was a French composer and cellist of the Romantic era and one of the originators of the operetta form. He was one of the most influential composers of popular music in Europe in the 19th century, and many of his works remain in the repertory. While his name remains most closely associated with the French operetta and the Second Empire, it is his one fully operatic masterpiece, Les contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann), …
- Tom Cora
Tom Cora (born Thomas Henry Corra) (September 14, 1953 - April 9, 1998), was a United States cellist and composer, best known for his improvisational performances in the field of experimental jazz and rock. He recorded with John Zorn, Butch Morris and The Ex, and was a member of Curlew, Third Person and Skeleton Crew.
- Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert (February 1 1859-May 26 1924) was a popular composer of light opera, and an accomplished cellist and conductor. He was a founder of th American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP).
- Rushad Eggleston
Rushad Eggleston (b. September 1979) is a cellist and member of the Grammy Award nominated bluegrass string quartet called The Fiddlers 4. Eggleston, a graduate of Carmel High School in Carmel, California, United States, first built his reputation in Monterey Bay Area circles as a member of the Youth Music Monterey orchestra. After competing for and being awarded a full scholarship, he attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.
- Natalia Gutman
Natalia Gutman is a cellist. She began to study cello at the Moscow Music School with R. Saposhnikov. She was later admitted to the Central Conservatoire of Moscow, where she was taught by Rostropovich, amongst others. Distinguished at important international competitions, she has carried out tours around Europe, America and Japan, being invited as a soloist by great conductors and orchestras.
- Andreas Brantelid
Andreas Brantelid was born into a family of musicians in Copenhagen, Denmark in October 1987. He received his first cello lessons before the age of 4 based on the Suzuki method. From 2000 to 2004, he studied with Professor Mats Rondin at the Music Academy, Malmö, Sweden. In 2004, Andreas began his studues with Professor Torleif Thedeen at the Edsberg Music Avademy in Stockholm. He has taken part in master classes given by Ralph Kirshbaum, David Geringas, …
- Joel Krosnick
Joel Krosnick (born 1941) is an American soloist, cellist, recitalist, and chamber musician who has performed all over the world for over thirty-five years. As a member of the Juilliard String Quartet since 1974, he has performed the great quartet literature throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
- David Popper
David Popper (December 9, 1843 - August 7, 1913) was a Bohemian cellist and composer.
- Raphael Wallfisch
Raphael Wallfisch is a British cellist. Wallfisch was born in 1953 in London to a pianist father and a cellist mother. His mother, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, is one of the last known surviving members of the Girl orchestra of Auschwitz. It quickly became clear in Wallfisch's childhood that he would dedicate his life to the cello, and thus he was provided, from the outset, with the guidance of such teachers as Amaryllis Fleming, Amadeo Baldovino, and Derek Simpson.
- Natalie Clein
Natalie Clein (born 25 March 1977) is a British cellist, born in Poole, Dorset. She started playing the cello at the age of six, and has studied with Anna Shuttleworth and Alexander Baillie at the Royal College of Music where she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Scholarship. She came to prominence after winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 1994 with an outstanding performance of the Elgar "Cello Concerto".
- Emanuel Feuermann
Emanuel Feuermann (November 22, 1902, Kolomyia, in the then Austria Galicia (and in Ukraine since 1991) - May 25, 1942, New York City) was a celebrated cellist. When Feuermann made his American debut in 1935, the hall was packed with fellow cellists, who had come to hear something truly extraordinary. Following the performance a critic wrote, "Difficulties do not exist for Mr. Feuermann, …
- Charlotte Moorman
Madeline Charlotte Moorman (November 18, 1933-November 8, 1991) was an American cellist and performance artist. Moorman was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She studied cello from age ten and won a scholarship to Centenary College (Shreveport, Louisiana) where she took her B.A. in music in 1955. She received her M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and continued on to postgraduate studies at The Juilliard School in 1962.
- Nathaniel Rosen
Nathaniel "Nick" Rosen is an American cellist, former gold prize winner at the International Tchaikovsky Competition, and faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music.
- Melora Creager
Melora Creager (born March 25 1966) is an American cellist and singer-songwriter. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, she grew up in Emporia, Kansas, with an older brother and a younger sister; all children were adopted. Her mother was a graphic designer and her father was an administrator and physicist at a university; both were very supportive of the arts, and encouraged their children to take up musical instruments. Creager began playing the piano at age five, …
- Gretta Cohn
Gretta Cohn is a cellist who is best known for playing cello in the rock group Cursive from 2001-2005. She left the group in August of 2005. Her departure was announced on the Cursive website in late August: <blockquote>Cursive regrets to announce the departure of cellist Gretta Cohn. After four years in the band, Gretta has decided to leave Omaha to pursue other interests and projects, including a potential solo album.
- Jorane
Jorane (b. 1975 under the name Joranne Pelletier) is a French-Canadian singer/cellist, who is notable for her alternative music style on a typically classical instrument as well as her ability to sing while playing cello at the same time. Jorane's style on the cello has been compared to Tori Amos on the piano. She has worked with Sarah McLachlan among other well-known artists.
- Tabea Zimmermann
Tabea Zimmermann, born on October 8 1966 in Lahr, (Germany), is a German violist. She began learning to play the viola at the age of three, and commenced piano studies at age five. At the age of 13, she studied viola with Ulrich Koch at the Conservatory of Fribourg and progressed to study with Sandor Vegh at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg. She soon gained notice in international competitions, winning first prizes in Genève (1982), Budapest (1984), …
- Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi
(born 1942 in Tokyo) is a Japanese cellist. He started to study music under the tutorship of Hideo Saito, founder of the Tokyo Conservatory. Tsutsumi made his debut as cellist when he was 12 years old with the Tokyo Philharmonic and at 18 he started his first concert tour as soloist throughout India and Europe. He was granted a Fullbright scholarship to study at Indiana University with Janos Starker.
- Tristan Honsinger
Tristan Honsinger is a cello player active in free jazz and free improvisation. He is perhaps best known for his long-running collaboration with free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor and guitarist Derek Bailey. Honsinger's energetic style of playing leads to the necessity to change bows every few minutes. Born in Vermont in 1949, Honsinger was given music lessons from a very early age on, as his mother had hopes of creating a chamber orchestra together with his brother and sister.
- Mark Summer
Mark Summer is the Turtle Island String Quartet's cellist as of 2006.
- Ofra Harnoy
Ofra Harnoy is a Canadian cellist. She moved with her family to Toronto in 1971. When she was six, she began cello lessons with her father, Jacob Harnoy. Her teachers include Vladimir Orloff, William Pleeth, Pierre Fournier, Jacqueline du Pré, and Mstislav Rostropovich. Harnoy made her professional debut as a soloist with orchestra at age ten. Her solo-orchestral and recital debuts at Carnegie Hall in 1982 brought her public and critical acclaim.