Jo Cole is Head of Strings and Cello Professor at the Royal Academy of Music. She won a scholarship to the Academy aged 16 where she studied with Florence Hooton and David Strange, before further study with Ralph Kirshbaum, Pierre Fournier and William Pleeth.

Her performing career includes membership of the Academy of St Martins, the City of London Sinfonia and the Orchestra of St Johns, regular playing with the London Symphony Orchestra for over thirty years, numerous guest principal and freelancing engagements throughout the UK as well as performances, broadcasts and well-received recordings of chamber music and solo works.

She has adjudicated competitions nationally and internationally and given classes in a number of international institutions including Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Prague Conservatories, the University of Ottawa, Royal Northern College of Music, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Birmingham Conservatoire. Jo uses these opportunities to share her thinking not only on cello playing but to advocate that developing musicians embrace all forms of performance and the arts in order to be fulfilled and communicative artists.

She is Visiting Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and Professor of Music at the University of London.