My father, George Isserlis, who has died aged 94, was a metallurgist who was appointed senior lecturer at the South Bank Polytechnic (now London South Bank University), served as president of the Institute of Metal Finishing, wrote and edited books, and was in international demand as a consultant. But his first love was music. His father was the pianist and composer Julius Isserlis; as an accomplished amateur violinist himself, George gloried in playing chamber music with my mother, Cynthia, a pianist; and he also liked to support young musicians. Attending the concerts of his three children – Annette, a viola player, Rachel, a violinist, and myself, a cellist – was one of his chief pleasures.

George was born in Odessa, in Ukraine, the son of Julius and Rita Isserlis. In 1922, Julius was one of 12 musicians given permission by Lenin to take their families abroad for six months in order to boost the international cultural reputation of the Soviet Union; not one of them returned. Although originally bound for the US (where Julius had played some years earlier, on a recommendation from Alexander Scriabin), Julius and his family stopped in Vienna, remaining there for 15 years.

My father grew up in the musically stimulating environment of that city, spending time with the many Russian musicians who visited the Isserlis family in their apartment. (The violinist Nathan Milstein was a regular guest; the pianist Joseph Lhévinne came and practised in the apartment for an afternoon – for some reason, my father, who was listening avidly, was not very impressed.)

In 1938, Julius had begun his first tour of the UK, just a week before the Anschluss. He stayed, and worked hard to bring over his wife and son (against the advice of his agent here, who wanted him to divorce my grandmother, and to marry a very rich British woman who had taken a shine to him; the agent thought it would be better for Julius's career). Both George and Rita made it to Britain within a few months.

With the outbreak of war, my father was briefly interned in a camp for enemy aliens on the Isle of Man, making friends there with two future members of the Amadeus Quartet. On his return to London, he began to study metallurgy, which was to become his career. In 1948, he became a British citizen, and in 1952 he married Cynthia Saville.

My father retired quite early, and thereafter devoted himself to voluntary work, becoming chairman of the Barnes Music Club and advising the English-Speaking Union on their musical programmes. He also took cordon bleu cookery courses, and liked to tell the story of the time he had excitedly planned an evening of trout with a friend who shared similar interests – only to discover that while my father had been talking about cooking, his friend had been thinking of Schubert's Trout quintet.

Cynthia died in 1998. In 2003, George went back to Russia after an absence of 81 years, visiting St Petersburg. I asked him why he hadn't gone back to Odessa or Moscow, the cities of his childhood. "I've already seen them," he explained.

• The first Russian motherboard based on ARM-processor Baikal-M