About

Chris Terepin is a versatile string player and musicologist. An unusual combination of modern cellist and viol player, his musicianship transcends divisions between ‘early music’ and ‘mainstream performance’, in favour of imagination, experimentation, and collaboration.

Since 2012 Chris has been cellist of the Florian Ensemble, a radical and independent-minded group described as “truly outstanding chamber music… an emotional roller-coaster and virtuoso performance.” He is also a member of early music groups Tessera Viol Consort and K’antu Ensemble, and collaborates with pianist Charis Hanning.

Chris has performed with period instrument ensembles including acclaimed consort Phantasm, Figure Ensemble, Three Parts Vied, The Hanover Band, Liverpool Bach Collective, and Manchester Baroque. Chris has appeared at Wigmore Hall, Bridgewater Hall, Cadogan Hall, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, and many UK music societies, and his playing has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, both live and on record. As a modern cellist - though always on gut strings - he has worked with many larger ensembles including St Paul’s Sinfonia and Suffolk Philharmonic Orchestra, concemporary music group UPROAR Wales, Bath Philharmonia, Manchester Camerata, Outcry Ensemble, London Music Collective, and the London Musical Arts Orchestra. Recent solo appearances include concertos by William Walton and Gerald Finzi. He has collaborated widely, working with artists including the Gildas Quartet, the Lantivet Duo, jazz musicians Callum Au and Nigel Price, and singer-songwriter Sam Jefferson.

Chris grew up in the gently rolling hills of rural West Berkshire and read music at Magdalen College, Oxford before pursuing studies in cello at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. He is now based in London. His teachers included Raphael Wallfisch, Philip Higham, Laurence Dreyfus, and Jonathan Manson. He is a passionate coach of chamber music, and has taught at Benslow Music, as well as on regular courses run by the Florian Ensemble.

As a researcher Chris explores ideas related to performance and ensemble. His PhD at King’s College London, supervised by Prof. Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, developed a radical perspective on the idea of musical ‘togetherness’ on the basis of early recorded string quartet playing. (Click here to read more!) He also has an interest in recording, from both sides of the microphone: mentored by one of the UK’s most experienced producer-engineers, he brings practical experience of chamber music performance to the recording process, emphasing creative independence and expressive freedom.