Annette Isserlis studied at RCM where she encountered Francis Baines and Catherine Mackintosh.
Both inspired her to explore the viol consort and baroque repertoire. She later taught baroque viola at RCM and RNCM.
In 1979 she became a member of Trevor Pinnock's English Concert and The Parley of Instruments at its inception, and in addition started appearing regularly with The Academy of Ancient Music.
She was a founder member of Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists, (where she was principal viola for over twenty years) and Orchestra Revolutionnaire et Romantique as well as becoming a member of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, The London Classical Players and Andrew Parrot’s Taverner Players, where she became principal viola. She was a founder-member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in 1986, appeared several times as guest-principal viola in John Butt’s Dunedin Consort and in 2014 became a permanent member of Sir Andras Schiff’s ensemble, Cappella Andrea Barca.
With all of these groups she has toured, recorded and broadcast worldwide. As a chamber-musician she has performed extensively in the UK, and she is a regular attendee at IMS Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music.
As a recording-producer she has worked with Steven Isserlis, Sir Roger Norrington and COE; Catherine Mackintosh, Lisa Beznosiuk, Maggie Cole, Philippa Davies, Adrian Butterfield, Melvyn Tan and Sam Hayward.
Her musical completions and arrangements have been performed and recorded by Sir John Eliot Gardiner with EBS, Anne Sofie von Otter, the Endellion Quartet, Frans Bruggen with the Orchestra of the 18th Century, William Christie with Les Arts Florissants and Daniel Harding with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.