CelloChat Adult Learner Series

Carolyn Hagler is a lifelong professional cellist and music educator. She is the creator and director of CelloDiscovery.com, a comprehensive online cello course for adults who are learning (or re-learning) how to play the cello. Before the advent of online teaching, Carolyn worked with hundreds of in-person students, starting them off on the right trajectory with her laser-focused understanding of cello pedagogy. Carolyn holds a Masters degree in music performance and is a tenured cellist with the Austin Symphony Orchestra. She has performed on many recordings and movie soundtracks and was one of the earliest members of the New World Symphony in Miami FL.

Israeli-Mexican-American cellist Michal Shein is a performer, community organizer and master educator focused on curating cross-cultural performance projects and intensive educational initiatives. In 2021, she founded the Cellísimo Festival, an intensive high level cello festival for Spanish speaking cellists which includes masterclasses with world-class faculty, special lectures and wellness sessions.

Billy Tobenkin is a professional cellist who started learning the cello from scratch at age 25. He is the founder and owner of adultcello.com where he specializes in teaching other adult learners who found the cello later in life. Through his online courses and popular YouTube channel, he has helped thousands of adults realize not only can they start cello, but that beautiful sound is within reach from DAY ONE. His teaching is infused with positivity, humor, and extremely helpful, fun analogies that draw upon his first bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing from Cornell University. Recently, he has written feature articles in The Strad Magazine that explore the psychological landscape of adult learning and how to maximize one’s learning potential (both his article and podcast interview in June of 2022 with The Strad were “Best of 2022”).

Laurence Vittes was born and grew up in Los Angeles; his father was a writer and his mother a teacher. He trained as a cellist, a librarian and a critic. His company was a major supplier to the music and recordings collections of the Library of Congress, Bibliothèque Nationale, British Library, Stanford, Harvard and Yale. He introduced French Harmonia Mundi, Hyperion, Chandos and Naxos to the North American market. Laurence believes that writing about music unleashes the potential of the classical music industry. He writes for the Huffington Post, Gramophone, Bachtrack, Strings, Audiophile Audition, and the Southern California Early Music Society.