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Enjoying both international and national recognition, cellist Rebecca Hartka has been lauded as a “virtuosic and passionate” performer. Martha Dorrill of the Farmville Herald remarked that "Rebecca Hartka made the Brahms melodies heart rending". In May 2009, Hartka made her international solo debut with the Saint-Saens cello concerto in Vietnam and Thailand, on a three week tour of Southeast Asia, also performing recitals in such venues as the American embassy in Hanoi. Her performance was reviewed by a local paper as “.... no less than magical and eloquent.”
Active as a solo and chamber recitalist as well as concerto soloist, in 2009 Hartka appeared in the Exploring the Arts series, the 88 Keys series, and the Jazz and More series, in addition to several solo and chamber music tours across New England and Montana. She was a featured soloist for the Project Guggenheim's "the Art of Compassion in a Time of War" and the 1999 Spiral Dance Festival in San Francisco. A recipient of the 1993 Henriette Reiss Award, and Hartka has also appeared as a chamber musician in the Newton Free Library series, the SAPAS performing arts seris, and in prestigious venues such as the Boston Athenaeum, the Boston Center for the Arts, the Lenox Atheneum and the Brevard Music Center. As one of the founding members of the Phoenix Trio, she gives regular concert tours throughout the country. The Trio was also a recipient of a 2005 Brookline Tercentennial Fund Grant and participated as a full fellow in the Brevard Advanced Chamber Music Festival in 2004.
As a guest and freelance performer, Hartka has been featured as a guest artist at Crane School of Music, in a concert tour with the Meritage Quartet and has also peformed with Serenata Chamber Players, Boston College Contemporary Music Ensemble, Hyperprism, the Fringe Festival, Cape Ann Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Bozeman Symphony, the Helena Symphony and the Intermountain Opera Company. Hartka has attended chamber festivals including the Oberlin in Cassalmaggiore Chamber music festival in Italy, the Lydian String Quartet Chamber Music Workshop, the Music from Salem Chamber Music Festival, and the Hampden-Sydney Chamber Music Festival.
As a crossover performer Hartka has appeared with Jenna Nichols in venues such as the Rockwood music club in New York and Club Passim in Cambridge MA. She has attended the String Fling at the Berklee school, working on alternative styles with Darol Anger of the Turtle Island String Quartet as well as Eugene Freisen of the Paul Winter Consort. She has also had private lessons in Celtic Music and is currently studying Baroque Cello. She has performed Baroque cello with violinist Carrie Krause of Apollo's Fire, as well as attending the International Baroque Institute at Longy.
An elected member of Phi Kappa Lambda, the National Music Honors Society, and a four year recipient of the Deans Scholar Award, Hartka completed a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Cello performance at Boston University College of Fine Arts (BU CFA) in May 2007.
As an Adjunct Assistant Professor or Cello at Montana State University from 2007-2010, Hartka taught private cello, directed the cello ensemble, coached chamber music and taught classes in String Techniques and Pedagogy, Music Appreciation and Improvisation. In additon to her Doctorate, Hartka completed a Masters in Music at BU CFA, and a Bachelor of Arts in Cello Performance at the Oberlin Conservatory and College. In 2003 she was the string department teaching assistant at Boston University College of Fine Arts, giving lessons to performance majors in violin, viola or cello. Hartka taught private lessons at the All Newton Music School in MA from 2001-07. She also served on the committee for the Henriette Reiss Award from 2002-07. Hartka's teachers have included Leslie Parnas, Michael Reynolds, Rhonda Rider, Clive Greensmith, Andor Toth, Peter Rejto, Douglas Moore and Justin Kagan.