Christine Lamprea, Cellist by Default!

Christine Lamprea started life as a New Yorker, the child of Colombian immigrants, then became a Texan at age seven. She started cello lessons in fifth grade with members of the San Antonio Symphony in an after-school program — but if her parents had had a bigger car, Christine wouldn’t be a cellist at all! The cello was not Christine’s first choice of ­instrument; she wanted to play the bass, that wonderfully deep-voiced string instrument that can dwarf its player. But even a half-size bass can be over five feet tall and that was the problem: the large instrument in its even larger case ­wouldn’t fit in her parents’ car. A cello, however, would…  

Despite the initial setback, Christine soon came to love the cello; it felt easy to relate to and came to her intuitively. By eighth grade she was taking private lessons and by 15 she was hooked. She distinctly remembers the moment in youth orchestra when she played Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony for the first time and understood “how it all fit together.” She attended Tanglewood the summer before her senior year and discovered she loved being in music 24/7. She came home and told her teacher she wanted to audition for ­conservatories, to which he drolly replied that she needed lessons twice a week, not just once. 

Those extra lessons helped Christine gain admission to ­Juilliard. She then received a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, which supported her MA at the New England Conservatory. Christine is now on the faculty at the Longy School of Music of Bard College and serves as substitute faculty at ­Juilliard. She told us she enjoys ­teaching ­because of the element of community. A musician’s life on the road can be quite ­solitary, with affirmation coming from actions to a single performance. In teaching, however, you can see the results of your efforts in a large number of students. Furthermore, “you get ­better at your own playing by listening to the students ­because you have to be able to articulate on the cello ­everything you’re teaching them.” 

Spanish is Christine’s second language but she didn’t want to speak it as a child in NYC. Now, however, she’s ­working on upping her game for teaching in Central and South ­America. She thinks her own accent is somewhat ­Mexican, no doubt a result of her years in Texas! None of this ­matters when she’s teaching in Spanish-speaking ­countries, however, because of the unanimity of musical terms — and because students are politely listening to her as la profesora!

Christine will speak to us in the universal language of ­music on February 2 and we are delighted to welcome her to our stage! 

—Kelly Brest van Kempen