Beginners, Intermediates, and Advanced are all welcome here.  My cello experience began when I was eleven years old and in the sixth grade at Bennion Elementary School in Taylorsville, Utah.  My first teacher was Ms. Mansfield.  The cello I played was loaned to me from the school.  I remember the cello never sounding bad. I do, however, remember breaking a string trying to tune it due to my lack of experience.  In all the years until I graduated high school I always had access to a cello from the public schools I attended.  They allowed my use over the summer too and that made me feel very lucky.  I loved to play the cello and be musical. 

I truly believe that my music education and my success at learning to play the cello was nurtured and fueled by my teachers, my friends and associates and by my own inner passion and love for the cello and music.  My greatest achievement in high school was placing 3rd in a talent show my senior year.  I had my first private cello lessons with Bonnie Felger.  She recognized the potential in me and those first lessons are still my greatest resource in how I teach my own students.  It wasn't until after I had graduated high school, and I had gotten a job at Kentucky Fried Chicken, that I took out a loan to purchase my first cello.  It was a Karl Knilling manufactured Cello, made in Germany.