About

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

Since 2012 Chris has been cellist of the Florian Ensemble, an independent-minded group who met at the Royal Northern College of Music and whose playing has been described as “truly outstanding chamber music… an emotional roller-coaster and virtuoso performance.” Now based in London, in 2025 the Florians set up Coulsdon Music, a project embedding live music into the local community through concerts, informal pop-ups, schools workshops and whole-family performances.

As a viol player Chris is a member the unique ‘historical pop group’ K’antu Ensemble, while appearing as a regular guest with the leading consorts Phantasm and Fretwork. He is also a member of Tessera Viol Consort, and has worked with many other period instrument ensembles include Figure Ensemble, Three Parts Vied, The Hanover Band, Liverpool Bach Collective, Manchester Baroque, and others.

As a modern cellist — though always on gut strings! — he is a member of the chamber orchestras Outcry Ensemble and St Paul’s Sinfonia. As a soloist he has found himself working through English cello concertos, performing those by William Walton, Gerald Finzi, and Edward Elgar with amateur orchestras in recent years. He has appeared at Wigmore Hall on numerous occasions, along with Bridgewater Hall, Cadogan Hall, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, and many UK music societies and festivals. His playing has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, both live and on record.

Chris has worked in a wide spectrum of other contexts: from contemporary music with UPROAR Wales to the original and community-focused programming of Bath Philharmonia; and as part of London’s thriving music scene, playing jazz standards in Claridge’s hotel and busking in Covent Garden market. He has been a member of London-based Abraxas Ensemble, while some of his many collaborations include the award-winning Gildas Quartet, the Lantivet Duo, Quartet Volute, acclaimed jazz musicians Callum Au and Nigel Price, and actor Mark Rylance.

Chris grew up in rural West Berkshire and read music at Magdalen College, Oxford before pursuing studies in cello at the RNCM in Manchester. He is now based in London. His teachers have included Raphael Wallfisch, Philip Higham, Laurence Dreyfus, and Jonathan Manson.

He currently teaches cello and chamber music at King’s College London, where he has also lectured in eighteenth-century music. He has also taught at Benslow Music and on weekend courses run by the Florian Ensemble. Chris’s academic research explores the domain of ensemble performance, and the philosophical, practical and historical questions associated with it. His PhD at King’s, 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.