Niall O'Loughlin studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music for four years and then participated in the Honor String Quartet scholarship at the University of Western Michigan. He then joined the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and continued masterclasses. He has always enjoyed learning and teaching the cello.

Dr. Christine Renée Kralik is the Assistant Professor of Cello at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. She was previously the Instructor of Cello at Middle Tennessee State University (2023 – 2024) in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the University of Mississippi (2019 – 2023) in Oxford, Mississippi, and Angelo State University (2017 – 2019) in San Angelo, Texas.

Dr. Kralik is a thriving young professional cellist who received her Doctorate of Musical Arts with an emphasis in cello performance from Texas Tech University in May of 2018. She holds a Masters in Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Utah, where she was also named as the Outstanding Senior. She studied cello performance with Jeffrey Lastrapes at Texas Tech University, Cleveland Orchestra cellist Richard Weiss at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Utah Symphony cellist Pegsoon Whang at the University of Utah.

Dr. Kralik has a thriving symphonic and orchestral playing career. Dr. Kralik is principal cello of the Central Wisconsin Symphony currently. Dr. Kralik has held principal cello positions for the North Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, The Tennessee Philharmonic, and as the substitute principal cellist of the Mobile Symphony in Alabama for the 2023 – 2024 season. She was previously a member of the Lubbock Chamber Orchestra acting as principal, and a member of the Lubbock, Amarillo, and Midland-Odessa Symphonies.

Dr. Kralik has recently recorded in various recording studios in Salt Lake City Utah, and in Nashville Tennessee, producing movie scores, video game music, music for theme parks, and music for professional artists. She has an album of her own of Romantic era works for cello and piano titled: Impassioned Cello, works by Mendelssohn, Grieg, and Sibelius. Her collaborator and pianist on this album is Jared Pierce of Brigham Young University. This album can be found on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, and many other major platforms. She recently recorded a second album of works for cello and piano in the summer of 2024 with pianist Amanda Johnston of The University of Mississippi. Works recorded were the cello sonatas of Poulenc, Prokofiev, and single movement works by contemporary Canadian composers Colin Eatock and Jocelyn Morlock.

Along with her active recording and orchestral career, she has performed in many recitals all over the country, collaborating with other musicians for numerous events and performances. Along with holding a busy performance schedule, Dr. Kralik finds great joy in teaching. She enjoys working with the cello students of the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, as well as cello students in the surrounding area and from all over the world. Students of hers have successfully entered into other programs of study after graduating with their degree of study, with Dr. Kralik. Students have auditioned and been involved in various summer and academic string and music programs as well, receiving scholarships for their playing. In the summer of 2018, Dr. Kralik joined as faculty for the Tennessee’s Governor’s School for the Arts, where she works closely with students in cello master-classes and sectionals, and performs regularly with the other faculty in a chamber music series for the duration of Governor’s School. Dr. Kralik has taught cello at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan in the summers of 2017 to 2019.

Dr. Kralik performs on a German Wilhelm Hammig cello dated 1907 and an unnamed French cello bow thought to be from the Pierre Simon School circa 1880.

Educator and musician Daniel Hoppe has been engaged with the art of teaching for over a decade. Steeped in the traditions of Suzuki Talent Education and The Alexander Technique (AT), his pedagogy emphasizes the inherent potential of every individual to learn and grow. He studied at Carleton College and the Boston Conservatory, and completed a masters in orchestral conducting and a doctorate in cello performance at the University of Kentucky. Daniel shares his passion and experience through individual and group lessons, public performances, and workshops. He has played at the SXSW festival, Carnegie Hall, and street corners. He has taught at Centre College, the Music Institute of Chicago, and his living room. No matter the setting, Daniel fosters a nurturing environment that emphasizes genuine connection. He is currently the Director of Suzuki Strings at Hamilton Avenue School and teaching cello and the Alexander Technique from his home studio, The Hopemark Hearth, in Greenwich, CT.

Jean-Michel Fonteneau is a distinguished Franco-American cellist and educator currently serving as Artist-Teacher at the Longy School of Music of Bard College. As a founding member of the acclaimed Quatuor Ravel, he performed at prestigious venues including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo, garnering prizes at the Evian International String Quartet Competition and Victoires de la Musique Classique.

Throughout his career, Fonteneau has collaborated with renowned artists including Leon Fleisher, Menahem Pressler, Kim Kashkashian, and members of the Amadeus, Tokyo, and Juilliard Quartets. His expertise spans both modern and baroque performance practice, as evidenced by his regular appearances with historically informed ensembles and his extensive discography on Albany Records, MSR Classics, and Centaur Records.

Prior to joining Longy, Fonteneau held distinguished positions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Lyon Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, France, where he pioneered innovative chamber music curricula and mentorship programs. His pedagogical approach integrates technical mastery with holistic development, emphasizing both artistic excellence and professional preparedness. This comprehensive methodology has produced successful performers, educators, and musical entrepreneurs who have appeared at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, and major festivals including Verbier and Tanglewood.

A sought-after clinician, Fonteneau maintains an active presence on the international festival circuit, including long-standing faculty positions at Yellow Barn and appearances at Beijing International Music Festival and Academy, Domaine Forget, and Orford Music Academy. His enduring commitment to nurturing the next generation of artists is reflected in his philosophy of developing self-actualized musicians equipped with both artistic depth and professional resilience.

Diane Chaplin is a world-class cellist and nurturing music educator who lives in Portland, Oregon. She appears often as a concerto soloist, recitalist and chamber music artist, and tours around the US as a featured member of the Portland Cello Project. For the 2024-25 season she is the Cello Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara; she also has a large class of private cello students, both in-person and on zoom, and teaches students all over the world through the Cello Refinery. Since the spring of 2020, Diane has been performing monthly livestream concerts of solo cello music, and has learned more than 250 pieces of solo repertoire during this timeDiane moved from New York City to Portland, Oregon, in 2009. Before taking up residence on the west coast, she spent 21 years as the cellist of the Colorado Quartet and with them had an international career which took her around the globe. The Quartet was the first all-female string quartet to perform the complete Beethoven Quartet cycle in both North America and Europe and their recordings of these works can be heard on the Parnassus label. Other award-winning discs are available on the Parnassus, Mode and Albany labels. Diane has held teaching positions at many prestigious institutions of higher learning, including Oberlin College-Conservatory and Swarthmore College, and taught for several years at Bard College in NY State. More recently she taught at both Linfield University and Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. She has given master classes at the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, Indiana University, Cleveland Institute of Music, Cincinnati Conservatory, Stanford University and the Banff Centre. As a member of the Colorado Quartet, she was visiting chamber music faculty at Yale University in 2009.Diane is an inspiring teacher of students young and old, and trained hundreds of cellists during a two-decade tenure at the Allen-Stevenson School in Manhattan. She often gives master classes and chamber music coachings, and adjudicates for solo, ensemble and orchestra festivals throughout Oregon and Washington. Diane holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts, where she was a student of Cesare Pascarella, and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Harvey Shapiro. She received a Special Prize from the International Cello Competition in Viña del Mar, Chile, and a Certificate from the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and has appeared in solo concerts throughout the United States and Europe. She has performed several times with Mikhail Baryshnikov, and in cameo performances with the Flying Karamazov Brothers.  

Diane is an espresso snob and always tours with a hand-pump portable espresso device.

When not performing or teaching in the US, she escapes to teach and perform from her home in Siena, Italy (where she does not need the portable espresso maker). 

Alicia Randisi-Hooker has been active as a cellist and Suzuki teacher for more than 30 years. She completed long term Suzuki training with Annette Costanzi (UK), and has taken many additional units of teacher training including ECC, ECM, Practicum and Group Class Techniques. She served as ensembles coordinator at the 2004 SAA conference in Minneapolis and as president of the Greater Knoxville Suzuki String Association, now the Knoxville Area Suzuki Cooperative. Alicia enjoys teaching at SAA Institutes,workshops and summer programs around the US, and is a faculty member at the annual Tennessee Cello Workshop. For ten years, she was Artistic Director and chief cello teacher at the Academy of Children’s Music in suburban Philadelphia, maintaining private studios in Pennsylvania and Texas prior to moving to Tennessee, where she presently directs Cello LEAP Studio.(www.celloleap.com) She engages in community outreach through concerts, recitals, workshops, and as an adjunct professor at Maryville College.

Zachary Sweet is a dedicated cellist, committed educator. Offering high quality performance and education to Ithaca, NY, the U.S. and abroad.

Dr. Yang studied at Arizona State University earning a Doctor of Musical Arts and a Master of Music as well as Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University earning a Bachelor’s in Music. For over five years, he was the Cello Instructor at the Easy Valley School of Music in Phoenix, Arizona. Today he is a Cello Teacher with Elliot Yang Cello Studio and a Substitute Cellist with the Phoenix Symphony.

For our 100th episode of Cello Chat,I am excited to chat with the incomparable Mark Summer. Widely regarded as one of the outstanding cellists of our time, Mark is known worldwide for his phenomenal percussion and pizzicato techniques combined with bowed jazz and fiddle phrasing. Mark is a co-founder of the two-time Grammy®-winning Turtle Island Quartet, and was the quartet's cellist for 30 years. Mark’s compositions for solo cello, as well as cello duo, violin and cello duo, solo violin, and bass versions of Julie-O can be found at www.marksummer.net/store Enjoy! #cellochat #youhadmeatcello