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 has played with various period instrument ensembles including acclaimed viol consort Phantasm, Figure Ensemble, Three Parts Vied, K’antu Ensemble, The Hanover Band, Liverpool Bach Collective, and Manchester Baroque. As a bass viol player he works with harpsichordist Nathaniel Mander. 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 on gut strings - he plays with the Fortescue Duo and Tresillian Trio, and has worked with many larger ensembles including Suffolk Philharmonic Orchestra (as principal), UPROAR Wales, 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 also collaborated with 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 South 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.

Chris 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 recording, with an emphasis on enabling creative independence and expressive freedom. Phonograph Effect is a remote recording service run with Scottish violinist and viola player Kay Stephen, providing affordable, high quality string ensemble tracks for musicians, composers and creators. The lockdown project Chasing Tails explored methods for recording remotely without using click tracks.

His PhD at King’s College London was closely related to this interest in ensemble playing. Supervised by Prof. Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, it developed a radical perspective on the idea of musical ‘togetherness’ on the basis of fascinating evidence of early recorded string quartet playing. Click here to find out more!