As a young child, Lydia Parkington attended a Boston Ballet Nutcracker performance and was smitten with the sound of the cello. “It changed me!” she says. “I just loved the timbre, the range, and the melancholy.” She studied at Cape Symphony Conservatory and Nauset High School, earned music degrees from UMass Amherst and Syracuse University, and has created a joyful career in cello performance and teaching.
Lydia plays with the musician-led Syracuse Orchestra, and has appeared with the Albany Symphony and many more, including touring the nation with her sisters as part of their indie-folk band. She has joined the Cape Symphony Orchestra for several concerts, including Voices of Spring: Mahler 5.
Teaching is a passion for Lydia. Over the years, she has worked with musicians of all ages and varied interests. “Students come in with really cool ideas,” she says. “One student was teaching himself bluegrass… another was learning klezmer. Some are very compelled to pursue the classical music track, and I am able to guide them. Others want to record, or do pop.” Whatever their goals, she’s excited to help students achieve them.
It helps to have diverse interests herself. While Lydia chose classical music for her formal education, she loves to perform all genres. “I’ll play in jazz groups, folk/indie bands, even punk bands!” Her enthusiasm is contagious. “I encourage all my students to perform as much as they can in any context. With my background, I can help them find their niche… which is great, because the industry is changing. The more woke we get about the classical music world, the more we realize how exclusionary it’s been.” It’s an exciting time. As orchestras strive to reach wider audiences, the diversity of their repertoires is wonderfully increasing.
Lydia sees her longtime students grow in many ways. “You can take the practice of learning an instrument to any other discipline,” she says. It’s not unlike athletics, in many ways. Practice teaches students to overcome obstacles; progress builds confidence. “Technically, musically, emotionally… things can get in our way. If you figure out how to surmount those hurdles – managing time, fears, anxieties – music can become a beautiful emotional outlet.”
She recalls one student she wasn’t sure she’d gotten through to, a young woman who seemed to be struggling to find her place. “She was always very morose, very quiet. As our lessons went on over the years, she sometimes got frustrated. Then after she went on to college, she wrote me a letter saying ‘you taught me I can do anything I set my mind to.’” It’s a touching memory. “You don’t realize how much you can mean to a student. Sometimes they don’t show it at the time.”
“Bringing light and passion is so important for a lot of learners in cello,” Lydia reflects. She loves to “find that passion, and support students as they figure out how they need it. It’s so different for each one.”
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Lydia Parkington is accepting new cello students at our West Barnstable campus. Email
