Lauren Riley Rigby is a New York City-based freelance and recording cellist and educator.  Having completed her PhD from NYU, her research explored issues of musical identity with classically trained cellist-improvisers and how these cellists have resisted the hegemony of classical music indoctrinated in conservatory training.  A lover of many types of music, Lauren is a regular cellist with Numinous, Musical Seasons, the Silhouette Quartet, Bianchi Musica, and singer-songwriters Jodelle, Daniel Zaitchik, and Erene.  She can be heard on recordings by saxophonist Jason Rigby, jazz pianist Brenda Earle, bassist John Benitez, vocalist Stevie Holland, Cantinero, Seymour Glass, Daniel Zaitchik and the Blue Bottle Collection, and Numinous.   She joined the NY Summer Music Festival faculty from 2006-2009 where she also performed original compositions with improvisation for cello and piano.  Additionally, she taught at the Great Neck Music Conservatory on Long Island from 2006-2011 and the Sylvan Academy of Music in NJ from 2006-2009.  In 2010, Lauren traveled to Sweden for a chamber music tour with the NY and Sweden-based quartet, Musical Seasons, and also to Trinidad for the third time to work as a performer and coach for the National Sinfonia Orchestra of Trinidad and Tobago.  In September 2011, she became the new Director of orchestral strings and chamber music at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, NY.