A Little Rock, a Little Classical
Carolyn Regula, The Cello Doll, on producing emo covers and original compositions
John Christopher Warner
A Little Rock, a Little Classical
Carolyn Regula, The Cello Doll on social media, performs chamber music and emo covers for the digital masses
Family lore holds that when Carolyn Regula was 18 months old, she found her older sister’s violin, held it upright rather than on her shoulder, and began to play it like a cello. You could say Regula (BUTI’11, CFA’15,’18) has been defying convention ever since.
Regula, who performs under the name The Cello Doll, has built a sizable following on social media and through live performances around Las Vegas, where she lives. She fuses her standard and electric cello with harder rock and emo sounds and posts cello covers of songs by some of her favorite rock artists on her YouTube channel, which has more than 8,000 subscribers. In one video, Regula plays a mash-up of System of a Down’s “Toxicity” and Britney Spears’ “Toxic”—with a little Vivaldi thrown in for good measure.
Regula had her first cello lesson at eight years old. By age 15, she’d won her first concerto competition. Around this time, her musical tastes began to expand beyond her beloved Yo-Yo Ma CD to bands like Evanescence and My Chemical Romance. She says she was drawn to their “raw and unapologetic” lyrics and to the attitude they projected.
“Also, their stage presence was so powerful to me,” she says. “I said, ‘I want to do that, but with a cello in my hand.’”
While studying cello performance and music theory and composition at CFA, Regula learned about major symphonies around the world going bankrupt.
“That started the conversation of why people aren’t coming to orchestra concerts or classical music concerts,” she says. “I realized we need to somehow translate this to the masses.”
She saw hope in groups like Vitamin String Quartet that were putting their unique spin on popular music and seeing their songs go viral online. In 2019, Regula had her first major hit on YouTube: a brooding mash-up of Ramin Djawadi’s theme from Game of Thrones and Johannes Brahms’ Cello Sonata in E Minor, op. 38, no. 1. “I had friends saying, ‘You have 10,000 followers!’ I’m like, ‘Is that good?’” she recalls.
Now, with nearly 18,000 Instagram followers, Regula says most of her paid cello work comes from her social media presence.
In 2022, she released Escaping Darkness, her first full-length album of covers and original compositions. In Vegas, she played at the 2023 Formula One Grand Prix and performed at events during Super Bowl LVIII. Regula performed with pop fiddler Lindsey Stirling in 2023 (“one of my greatest accomplishments from being on social media”), but she adds that she’s working on creating a unique solo live show for The Cello Doll.
“The next step is to get more on the radar with some of these bands and people who have inspired me so much,” she says. “I want to make it virtuosic, to really showcase the training I have had and what I know the cello is capable of doing.”
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