Her father Julius Ruegger was a government official, and her mother was a music teacher before marriage.

She started learning the violin as a small girl, but changed to cello while still young.

[3] Elsa Ruegger played with the Boston Symphony in 1903,[6] and with the New York Philharmonic in 1907, then toured the United States[7] performing with British tenor Cecil James,[8] and American violinist Francis MacMillen.

[9] "Miss Ruegger possesses poetic gifts of the highest order and is blessed with the true artist temperament," declared one American reviewer in 1907.

"I don't believe that it is possible to draw any sex line in art," she told a Detroit newspaper in 1908.