At ease with the diverse musical styles of the last five centuries, Ms. Ou’s creative programming balances traditional European masterworks with more contemporary and eclectic ones. She has recorded three of the most beloved cello concerti by Haydn, Tchaikovsky, and Elgar, and premiered Taiwanese composer – Hsiao Tyzen’s Cello Concerto in Taipei, Taiwan. Her decade-long collaboration with Iranian composer Reza Vali has yielded numerous performances, premieres, and recordings of a dozen of his solo and string quartet works and his Cello Concerto: The Dervish and The Magus. Along with Hsiao, who wrote most of his cello works for her, American composers Richard Toensing and Daniel Pinkham, have also dedicated chamber works to her. Recent crossover music performances have featured collaborations with artists on mandolin, banjo, accordion, didgeridoo, erhu, pipa, and the Persian santoor.

As a prize-winning recording artist, Carol’s discography includes solo and chamber music discs issued by Chi-Mei, Naxos, CRI, MSR, and Albany Records, many available on Spotify. Among her many recordings with the Carpe Diem String Quartet are Sergei Taneyev’s String Quartets (Vol. 4 & 5) on Naxos, and Reza Vali’s “The Book of Calligraphy” issued by Albany Records. Her Naxos recording of Walter Piston’s Chamber Music won the 2001 Chamber Music America’s Best Chamber Music CD award and her recording of Jeff Midkiff’s “Music for Mandolin & String Quartet” won the 2018 Global Music Awards gold medal.

A passionate educator, Ms. Ou is the recipient of the 2025 Jean Stackhouse Award for Excellence in Teaching. She mentors inquisitive cello and chamber music students of all ages at NEC Prep and Adult Education and helps to make chamber music rigorous and fun at NEC College. A graduate of Yale, she has taught at NEC, MIT, and NYU, and was the inaugural Director of Chamber Music at Heifetz International Music Institute. She has served as Chair of Strings at NEC Adult Education and is presently Chair of Chamber Music at NEC Prep. Outside of regular teaching, Carol travels internationally for cello and chamber music master classes on five continents and is a cheerleader to an athletic school teaching poet and a budding beat-boxing ornithologist.