Ingrid Perrin

Cello Tutor

Ingrid studied cello with Raphael Wallfisch and Moray Welsh at Wells Cathedral School and the University of York. She left these institutions vowing never to become a teacher or indeed set foot inside a school again.

After completing her formal studies she was invited to work in Sheila Nelson’s Tower Hamlets Strings Project and found that teaching was in fact an excellent partner career to performance. Highlights from that period include playing gamelan and cello at the NT, recording with Heaven 17 and Palais Schaumberg, and teaching a class of sixty young violinists and cellists to play London’s Burning by ear in several keys using Kodaly sol-fa.

Ingrid currently pairs cello teaching with online baby massage classes, works as coordinator for regional officers for ESTA and teaches privately and at NCYM.  Her regular gigging band is the Astor String Quartet.

Ingrid says, “my first cello teacher was a wise person with lots of suggestions for playing and living.  She told me that time was never wasted; even if you were daydreaming, that was when some of the best creative ideas could germinate in your mind.  She was also very strict about sitting nicely while playing, and she put on spectacular summer cello concerts at our primary school. There were always fabulous cello ensemble pieces to perform and a huge vat of trifle.

I wouldn’t mind having a superpower. Being able to melt time so hours could expand or shrink would be quite handy.”