I started out as a fairly traditional modern cello student and went through several university degrees [in the US]. I got to a point where I started to feel very restricted by the traditional path and ended up taking a break from music because I found it so dull.

I did a desk job for a year, but I had this parallel life where I always sang for fun, especially 17th-century music, and that kind of led me to find the viola da gamba and Baroque cello.

Ruby Brallier. Photo © Tanya Rosen-Jones

Around 2015, I had an opportunity to go to the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, which is a summer program, and learn the viola da gamba for the first time. They throw you in, and you just sink or swim. You have to play chamber music, and I went into that having zero experience. I’d never played on gut strings or on six strings before, so it was a lot of fun. It was also very difficult, but that kind of lit a fire in me.

Then I decided to approach a local viola...