Close this window Mary Lou Rylands Cello Mary Lou Rylands is Associate Professor of Cello Performance and Chamber Music at the University of Connecticut. She is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory and holds a Master’s Degree from Yale University where she studied with Aldo Parisot. Her other teachers include Pierre Fournier and Andre Navarra. Always active in chamber music, Ms. Rylands has performed with the Sea Cliff Chamber Players, the Essex Chamber Players and the Baroque Companions of Hartford. She is a former member of the New England String Quartet and the UConn Chamber Players. As a champion of new music, she has premiered works by numerous composers including Gwyneth Walker, Robert Dix, Walter Ihrke, Eric Neilsen, Thomas Reed, Dennis Kitts and Elizabeth Scheidel Austin. She can be heard on CDs produced by North Star Records and the University of Connecticut. Ms. Rylands has been a featured soloist with the Willimantic Orchestra and the Coast Guard Chamber Players in the concerti of Kabalevsky and Ibert. She is founder and Director of the UConn Cello Society which has grown to more than eighty members since its beginnings in 1992.