|
 Astrid Schween,
cellist, enjoys a busy international concert career. As a 20-year member of the Lark Quartet and guest with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, she performed in some of the world’s most important venues, including Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, the Musikverein, L’Opera de la Bastille, Wigmore Hall, the Library of Congress, and on tour throughout Japan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. She has received critical acclaim for her performances at festivals as wide-ranging as the Istanbul Festival, Musicades, Lockenhaus, the Schleswig-Holstein and Edinburgh festivals, Moscow’s Beethoven Festival, the Festival da Camera in St. Miguel de Allende, Würzburg’s Mozart Festival and Sweden’s prestigious Siljan Festival. Also with the Lark, she won numerous international prizes including the gold medal at the Shostakovich Competition in St. Petersburg and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in New York.
Astrid received her training at the Juilliard School, where she was twice awarded the Cello Prize. Her teachers there included Harvey Shapiro, Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins. After she performed with the New York Philharmonic as winner of their Young Peoples’ Competition, Zubin Mehta arranged for her to study in London with the late Jacqueline du Pré. She later participated in the Marlboro Music Festival and the William Pleeth Cello Master Classes at Aldeburgh’s Britten-Pears School. Other major teachers included Bernard Greenhouse, Ardyth Alton and Eugene
Moye. She has recorded nearly two dozen CDs for Decca/Argo, Arabesque, Point, Agora, New World, CRI, Koch and Endeavor Classics and collaborated with many celebrated artists including Joshua Bell, Branford Marsalis, Edgar Meyer, Karl Leister, choreographer Bill T. Jones, and has commissioned new works from America’s leading
composers: Aaron Jay Kernis, Peter Schickele, Daniel Bernard Roumain(DBR) and Julia Wolfe to name a few.
Astrid is currently Professor of Cello at the University of Massachusetts and holds a senior position at the Interlochen Arts Center. She performs frequently as concerto soloist, in recital with Gary Hammond and makes regular appearances at the Inter-Harmony International Festival in Germany. Recent concerto engagements have included the Dvorak, Elgar, Haydn, Brahms Double and Lalo Concerti, as well as newer works by Tan Dun and Menachem Wiesenberg. She is represented in the US by MCM Artists Management.
|
