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A nationally recognized cellist, Dr Rebecca Hartka's playing has been described as virtuosic and passionate. Martha Dorrill of the Farmville Herald in Virginia remarked that "Rebecca Hartka made the Brahms melodies heart rending" after a performance of the Brahms Clarinet Trio. She has also been heralded for her attentive continuo playing by Boston Globe's Richard Dyer in a performance of Mozart's Opera La Finta Giardiniera. Dyer also praised The Fringe Festival Orchestra, in a performance of Philip Glass's chamber-opera Galileo Galilei , of which she was the only cellist, as an "excellent and necessarily indefatigable 11-piece orchestra."

A versatile performer, Hartka has worked with numerous ensembles large and small including Serenata Chamber Players, Boston College Contemporary Music Ensemble, Hyperprism, the Fringe Festival, Cape Ann Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Helena Symphony and in the SAPAS Performing Arts series and in such prestigious venues as the Boston Athenaeum and the Boston Center for the Arts. She is one of the founding members of the Phoenix Trio, which 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. Most recently Hartka has been featured as a guest artist in a concert tour with the Meritage Quartet, and currently serves as the Assistant Principal for the Bozeman Symphony Orchestra. Hartka will be making her solo debut, performing the Saint-Saens cello concerto in May 2008 with the Montana State University Symphony Orchestra.

As 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 a Doctoral student she acted on numerous occasions as principal cellist of the Chamber, Opera and Symphony Orchestras. She was elected to Phi Kappa Lambda, the National Music Honors Society in 2007. Hartka has also attended numerous 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. She also appeared with the Novalis Quartet at the as part of the Project Guggenheim's "the Art of Compassion in a Time of War". She is the recipient of the 1993 Henriette Reiss Award.

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 was the soloist for the 1999 Spiral Dance Festival and on the Global Jams stage of the Pride Festival, both in San Francisco. In March of 2001 she was the central performer for a Preston Productions, ADC Broadband commercial video shoot in Copley Square, Boston. Additionally she has attended the String Fling at the Berklee school, working on improvisation techniques 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 an Adjunct Assistant Professor or Cello at Montana State University, Hartka teaches private cello, directs the cello ensemble, coaches chamber music and teaches classes in String Techniques and Pedagogy. 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.