Alice Robbins plays principal cello as well as viol with the historical performance ensemble Arcadia Players in western Massachusetts, of which she is a founding member. She is also a member of Arcadia Viols and the Oberlin Consort of Viols, and in the course of a long career has enjoyed performing widely on baroque cello, viola da gamba and vielle in numerous ensembles, including the Early Music Quartet (Studio der frühen Musik), Concerto Vocale, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Boston Camerata, Opera Lafayette, Washington Bach Consort, and the Handel and Haydn Society. She was a founding member of Concerto Castello, an international quintet specializing in the music of the early seventeenth century, and also performs with the Folger Consort, Four Nations Ensemble and other ensembles.
A member of the Five College Early Music faculty since 1979, Robbins earned degrees at Indiana University and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where she was a student of Hannelore Mueller. She has recorded for Naxos, Centaur, Telefunken, EMI-Reflexe, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Smithsonian and Gasparo records, as well as for radio productions.