About Dr. Kralik
Dr. Christine Renée Kralik is the Assistant Professor of Cello at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. She was previously the Instructor of Cello at Middle Tennessee State University (2023 – 2024) in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the University of Mississippi (2019 – 2023) in Oxford, Mississippi, and Angelo State University (2017 – 2019) in San Angelo, Texas.
Dr. Kralik is a thriving young professional cellist who received her Doctorate of Musical Arts with an emphasis in cello performance from Texas Tech University in May of 2018. She holds a Masters in Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Utah, where she was also named as the Outstanding Senior. She studied cello performance with Jeffrey Lastrapes at Texas Tech University, Cleveland Orchestra cellist Richard Weiss at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Utah Symphony cellist Pegsoon Whang at the University of Utah.
Dr. Kralik has a thriving symphonic and orchestral playing career. Dr. Kralik is principal cello of the Central Wisconsin Symphony currently. Dr. Kralik has held principal cello positions for the North Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, The Tennessee Philharmonic, and as the substitute principal cellist of the Mobile Symphony in Alabama for the 2023 – 2024 season. She was previously a member of the Lubbock Chamber Orchestra acting as principal, and a member of the Lubbock, Amarillo, and Midland-Odessa Symphonies.
Dr. Kralik has recently recorded in various recording studios in Salt Lake City Utah, and in Nashville Tennessee, producing movie scores, video game music, music for theme parks, and music for professional artists. She has an album of her own of Romantic era works for cello and piano titled: Impassioned Cello, works by Mendelssohn, Grieg, and Sibelius. Her collaborator and pianist on this album is Jared Pierce of Brigham Young University. This album can be found on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, and many other major platforms. She recently recorded a second album of works for cello and piano in the summer of 2024 with pianist Amanda Johnston of The University of Mississippi. Works recorded were the cello sonatas of Poulenc, Prokofiev, and single movement works by contemporary Canadian composers Colin Eatock and Jocelyn Morlock.
Along with her active recording and orchestral career, she has performed in many recitals all over the country, collaborating with other musicians for numerous events and performances. Along with holding a busy performance schedule, Dr. Kralik finds great joy in teaching. She enjoys working with the cello students of the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, as well as cello students in the surrounding area and from all over the world. Students of hers have successfully entered into other programs of study after graduating with their degree of study, with Dr. Kralik. Students have auditioned and been involved in various summer and academic string and music programs as well, receiving scholarships for their playing. In the summer of 2018, Dr. Kralik joined as faculty for the Tennessee’s Governor’s School for the Arts, where she works closely with students in cello master-classes and sectionals, and performs regularly with the other faculty in a chamber music series for the duration of Governor’s School. Dr. Kralik has taught cello at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan in the summers of 2017 to 2019.
In September of 2022, Dr. Kralik published an article in the American String Teachers Association Journal Vol. 73 No.3, 43 – 47, titled “Getting The Most Out of Recording Oneself: Learn to Incorporate Recording as Part of Good Practice Habits.” Since the publication of this article, Dr. Kralik has presented and held discussions on this topic in various venues. Most recently, in January of 2024, Dr. Kralik led a presentation for the Middle Tennessee State Band and Orchestra Association, a clinic for orchestra directors and educators in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. She presented for students, educators, and musicians at the All-West Region Clinic in Memphis, Tennessee of 2023, and the Lubbock Education Outreach Clinician for string orchestra teachers of Lubbock, Texas in June of 2022.
At the American String Teachers Association Conference in March of 2023 in Orlando, Florida, Dr. Kralik presented and held a panel discussion on a “Holistic Approach to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in String Programs at Secondary and Higher Education” for string educators, musicians, and orchestra directors. In preparation for this conference, she presented this topic for the All-West Region Clinic in February 2023 in Memphis, Tennessee.
She most recently presented for the College Music Society Conference at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee in February of 2024, “Two Clarinet Trios by American Women Composers.” Dr. Kralik is a member of the RKP Trio and performs regularly in recital and concert with pianist Professor Adrienne Park, and clarinetist Dr. Michael Rowlett, both of the University of Mississippi.
In her academic teaching, Dr. Kralik has enjoyed holding lecture courses on Music Theory, String Education for Music Majors, as well as Appreciation for Music, creating her own curriculum in these courses. Dr. Kralik strives to be helpful to those that enter her classroom. As one learns to appreciate music in any of these courses, their heart grows, their minds expand, that through music they become more capable of being able to understand logic, to hear harmonies around the world and the joy of creation in collaboration with others in all of these endeavors. Music is powerful and can bring wholeness and greater understanding to a person when they can learn and grasp it.
Dr. Kralik performs on a German Wilhelm Hammig cello dated 1907 and an unnamed French cello bow thought to be from the Pierre Simon School circa 1880.
