The cello ( /ˈtʃɛloʊ/ CHEL-oh; plural cellos or celli) is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass.

A person who plays a cello is called a cellist. The cello is used as a solo instrument, in chamber music, in a string orchestra and as a member of the string section of an orchestra. It is the second largest bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, the double bass being the largest.

Cellos were derived from other mid- to large-sized bowed instruments in the 16th century, such as the viola da gamba, and the generally smaller and squarer viola da braccio, and such instruments made by members of the Amati family of luthiers. The invention of wire-wrapped strings in Bologna gave the cello greater versatility. By the 18th century the cello had largely replaced other mid-sized bowed instruments.

The name cello is an abbreviation of the Italian violoncello, which means "little violone", referring to the violone ("big viol"), the lowest-pitched instrument of the viol family, the group of string instruments that went out of fashion around the end of the 17th century in most countries except France, where they survived another half-century or so before the louder violin family came into greater favour in that country too. Thus, the name carries both an augmentative "-one" ("big") and a diminutive "-cello" ("little"). By the turn of the 20th century, it had grown customary to abbreviate the name violoncello to 'cello, with the apostrophe indicating the six missing prefix letters. It is now customary to use the name "cello" without the apostrophe and as a full designation. The word derives ultimately from vitula, meaning a stringed instrument.

Mischa Maisky (Latvian: Miša Maiskis; born January 10, 1948 in Riga) is a Soviet and an Israeli cellist.

Maisky was born as the younger brother of organist and harpsichordist Valery Maisky (1942-1981).

He began studies at the Leningrad Conservatory and later with Mstislav Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatory whilst pursuing a concert career throughout the Soviet Union. In 1966 he won 6th Prize at the Moscow International Tchaikovsky Competition. In 1970, he was imprisoned in a labor camp near Gorky for 18 months.^{[citation needed]} After his release, he emigrated to Israel, where he holds citizenship. He also studied for a time with Gregor Piatigorsky in Los Angeles. He currently lives in Belgium.

In his performing and recording career, Maisky has worked in long-standing partnerships with artists such as the pianists Martha Argerich, Radu Lupu, and Sergio Tiempo, the violinists Gidon Kremer and Janine Jansen, and the conductors Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, and Giuseppe Sinopoli.

Gautier Capuçon (born 3 September 1981) is a French cellist.

Gautier Capuçon was born in Chambéry, Savoie, the youngest of three siblings. His brother is the violinist Renaud Capuçon.

He started learning the cello when he was four years old. He began his formal musical education in his hometown at the Ecole Nationale de Musique de Chambéry, where he graduated with first prizes in cello and in piano.

In Paris, he studied the cello initially with Annie Cochet-Zakine, who had heard him in Chambéry and brought him with her to the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris (CNR), where he graduated in 1997 with the first prize in cello. Following on, he then became a pupil of cello pedagogue Philippe Muller at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris (CNSMP), where he graduated in 2000 with first prizes in cello and chamber music. After that, he finished his studies with Heinrich Schiff at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna.

Between 1997 and 1998, as a student, he was a cellist in the European Community Youth Orchestra (now the European Union Youth Orchestra) and also in the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, playing under conductors including Bernard Haitink, Pierre Boulez and Claudio Abbado.

Ofra Harnoy CM (born January 31, 1965, Hadera, Israel) is a Canadian cellist.

Harnoy moved with her family to Toronto in 1971. When she was six, she began cello lessons with her father, Jacob Harnoy. Her teachers included Vladimir Orloff, William Pleeth, Pierre Fournier, Jacqueline du Pré, and Mstislav Rostropovich.

Harnoy made her professional debut as a soloist with an orchestra at age ten. Her solo-orchestral and recital debuts at Carnegie Hall in 1982 brought her public and critical acclaim.

Harnoy performed and recorded the world premiere of the Offenbach Cello Concerto in 1983 and the North American premiere of the Bliss Cello Concerto in 1984. She also made the world premiere recordings of several Vivaldi concertos. In 1987 Harnoy joined the roster of RCA Victor Red Seal, and recorded several best selling albums.

Harnoy has played in many genres of music. She has played with artists such as; Plácido Domingo, Sting, Igor Oistrakh, Loreena McKennitt, Jesse Cook and many more.

Harnoy's Beatles Album combined classical music with pop.

Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan pronunciation: [ˈpaw kəˈzaɫs]; December 29, 1876 – October 22, 1973), known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time. He made many recordings throughout his career, of solo, chamber, and orchestral music, also as conductor, but he is perhaps best remembered for the recordings of the Bach Cello Suites he made from 1936 to 1939.

Casals was born in El Vendrell, Catalonia, Spain. His father, Carlos Casals i Ribes (1852–1908), was a parish organist and choirmaster. He gave Casals instruction in piano, song, violin, and organ. He was also a very strict disciplinarian. When Casals was young his father would pull the piano out from the wall and have him and his brother, Arturo, stand behind it and name the notes and the scales that his father was playing. At age four Casals could play the violin, piano and flute; at the age of six he played the violin well enough to perform a solo in public. His first encounter with a cello-like instrument was from witnessing a local traveling Catalan musician, who played a cello-strung broom handle. Upon request, his father built him a crude cello, using a gourd as a sound-box. When Casals was eleven, he first heard the real cello performed by a group of traveling musicians, and decided to dedicate himself to the instrument.^{[citation needed]}