'It sounds corny, but it's what I was born to do'

'It's a pain to transport," says Gerald Peregrine. He's a classical cellist: young, Irish and, if the Mohican haircut is anything to go by, a little unusual. As we sit in the airy music room which is being purpose-built at his parents' Stillorgan home, he is certainly musing with unusual frankness on the nature of his chosen instrument. "A pain," he repeats. You have to book two seats on the plane." In these post 9/11 days, have cellos - like umbrellas - not been classed as dangerous weapons?, writes Arminta Wallace

"No, not yet," he says. "What you do is, you buy an extra seat and they put it down as Mr C Ello, or Mr Cello Peregrine. It has happened - although not to me, but I've heard stories about people being paged at airports - 'Could Mr C Ello come to the standby desk?' " He gives a pixie grin. "So that's the story at the moment. But I'm saving up for a Lear jet."

Chance, he doesn't need to add, would be a fine thing. Before the jet come the house, the car, the mortgage. Until three years ago, Peregrine was a full-time music student - and he's still working his way through the financial fallout. His early teens saw him hopping back and forth to London for lessons with cello master William Pleeth; then there was the purchase of an instrument.

Regrets? He shakes his head. He hasn't any. "It's what I was born to do, really," he says. "I know it sounds corny. But I don't know what I'd have done if I didn't do music." If music is a family business, Peregrine is off to a flying start. His mother is the violinist Sheila O'Grady, his uncle the tenor Frank Patterson.

"There has always been somebody playing something, somewhere in the house," he says. "I started on the violin when I was about three - but I was very hyper, so I didn't get very far. Then when I was five, or maybe six, someone gave me a cello, and it stuck. I had to sit down and focus. My first teacher was my aunt, Moya O'Grady. She used to get a fiver for a half-hour's lesson, and she paid me 20p to practise. I was mercenary from a young age. My first concert was on the violin, when I was about four; and I didn't want to play. I can remember my mother standing at the back of the hall waving a pound note."

Once he got the hang of the focus thing, he progressed at a startling rate. He won a foundation scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music in London. A first-class honours degree was followed by a Fullbright scholarship to Indiana University, where he was helped along by a couple of post-graduate scholarships from the Arts Council. In 1996 he won the string category of the RTÉ Musician of the Future competition, and went on to represent Ireland at the European Young Musician of the Future competition in Portugal. As a result he was invited to take part in the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, and he has played every year since.

"They choose young musicians to go down and play quartets, and there's a master classes programme," he says. "There's a fantastic atmosphere, with people from all over Europe and the world. It definitely brings your level up."

This year's festival will see him move up to another level again - he is to take part in one of the festival's most glamorous and musically exciting events, the Irish premiere of Anthony Powers's setting of Seamus Heaney's poem Station Island, with Heaney on hand to read the text and Laurent Wagner conducting. "A stellar cast," notes Peregrine, with another pixie grin.

He is quick to give credit to his parents, his teachers, the Arts Council, the Bantry festival. In the spring of 2004 he presented Beethoven's complete works for cello and piano in a series of three lunchtime concerts at the NCH; this year, he did a similar series featuring Brahms and Bach. He also organised a highly successful fund-raiser, The Cello Dances, in aid of the Make a Wish foundation. "I think it's important to be pro-active rather than sitting around waiting for the phone to ring," he says.

As regards the innovative programming of Beethoven, Bach and Brahms, he says he had just started a partnership with the Australian pianist Lance Coburn and was looking for a way to present the standard works in the cello and piano repertoire.

"We were very lucky in that Lyric FM decided to record the first concert and help with the marketing. The pieces hadn't been heard together like that for a while."

For the moment, at least, the hard work seems to have paid off. Next Monday he'll play a Haydn concerto at St Ann's Church in Dawson Street. Then there's the big gig at Bantry. Come the autumn, there's another Cello Dances event, plus a tour of the US with Barry Douglas and Camerata Ireland. He's also looking at recording his own CDs. In terms of career development, has he modelled himself on anybody in the classical music business?

"There's no right way and wrong way to do it. One way is to do an international competition - but they're fraught with peril, so I'm not doing that until I'm ready. I think it's important to be open to other kinds of music. My brother is a songwriter and has a band and is interested in all sorts of music - bluegrass, for instance."

He himself has worked in the string section of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, and, as a freelance, has played with artists as diverse as Rod Stewart and Jamiroquai. "My friend got us tickets for U2," he says. " I know, I know - they're like gold dust, and all that - but it's the day before Bantry, which is a bit unfortunate."

Decisions, decisions. "Sooner or later you have to take what you've learned and apply it to create your own sound. You have to be guided by two things - by your musical instincts, and by the score."

To be a cellist, specifically, though, what do you need? "I think you need a strong back to carry it," he says. "Actually, I could just as easily have been a violinist. But I'm really happy I chose the cello. I do think your personality is shaped, a little bit, by your instrument. I mean, you spend a lot of time locked up in a room with that instrument, working away for hours and hours on end."

What - like people who grow to look like their pets? "Well - yes." He is uncharacteristically silent for a moment. Then he throws back his head and laughs. "God. I hope I don't grow to look like a cello . . . "

Gerald Peregrine plays Haydn's cello concerto in C at St Ann's Church, Dublin, with the Orchestra of St Cecilia, conducted by David Agler, on Monday. He plays at St Brendan's Church, Bantry, June 28 as part of the West Cork Chamber Music Festival