Solo Cellist: Jennifer Kloetzel 

A graduate of The Juilliard School and a Fulbright Scholar, cellist Jennifer Kloetzel has concertized throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician. A founding member of the San Francisco-based Cypress String Quartet (1996-2016) and QuartetES, Jennifer has toured the globe and performed at such renowned venues as Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, the Chautauqua Institute and the Ravinia Festival, the Lobkowicz Palaces in both Vienna and Prague, as well as prominent colleges and conservatories worldwide.

Erica Lessie

Erica Lessie is a freelance cellist in the Chicago area, working in a broad range of styles across many facets of the Chicago music scene. Erica has performed on the Oprah Winfrey show with both Whitney Houston and Seal, and has also appeared with Diana Krall, Andrea Bocelli, Peter Cetera, the Four Tops and Johnny Mathis. She is an auxiliary member of the rock band Tributosaurus and co-founder of Cherchez la Femme, a musical ensemble dedicated to presenting the arts expressed by women across the millennium. Ms. Lessie also developed Cellos of Unusual Shape, a solo presentation that explores the diversity of variant cellos.

Brenda Neece 

Cello Museum founder and curator, Dr. Brenda Neece, DPhil (Oxon.), is a cellist and a researcher specializing in the history of the cello. Before starting The Cello Museum in the autumn of 2019, she worked as a freelancer and served for just over a decade as the first curator of the musical instrument collections at Duke University. In addition to playing the cello, doing cello research, and writing about cellos, she enjoys experimenting with variant cellos. In addition to her modern instrument, she also plays a 5-string baroque cello, a small 5-string cello, and sometimes travels with her folding prakticello.