Astrid Schween
Cellist Astrid Schween enjoys a multifaceted career as a soloist, chamber artist and teacher. Since joining the Juilliard String Quartet and Juilliard Cello Faculty in 2016, she has performed throughout the US, Europe, Canada, China and Japan, recorded albums for SONY, and collaborated with performers Itzhak Perlman, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Emmanuel Ax, and composers Mario Davidovsky and Jörg Widmann, among others. She has been featured on National Public Radio, in Strad Magazine, and Strings Magazine, and was a special guest speaker on the topic of Women in Music at the Library of Congress. More recently, she contributed a series of popular instructional videos for the platform ToneBase.
Schween received the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and Gold Medal at Russia’s Shostakovich International String Quartet Competition as a member of the Lark Quartet. She and her Lark colleagues were mentored by the Juilliard, Guarneri, Budapest, Amadeus, Borodin, Paganini, Galimir and La Salle quartets and recorded numerous CDs for the Arabesque, Decca/Argo, CRI, New World, Centaur, NAR, and Point labels.
Astrid Schween made her concerto debut with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic at age 16. She received her degrees from the Juilliard School and was a pupil of Leonard Rose, Harvey Shapiro, Channing Robbins and Ardyth Alton.
Additionally, she enjoyed a rich 7-year mentorship with the great cellist Jacqueline DuPré in London. She was fortunate to have begun her studies with Dr. H.T. Ma and benefited from additional instruction by Bernard Greenhouse, Philippe Muller, Eugene Moye and Scott Ballantyne. During her summers at the Marlboro Festival, she was selected for a trio performance with Rudolf Serkin and Joshua Bell.
With a great passion for performing cello recitals and giving cello master classes, Schween’s recent and upcoming invitations include opening night at Chamber Music Detroit, the Garth Newel Music Festival in Virginia, the McDuffie Center in Atlanta, Carriage House Violins in Boston, the Meadowmount School of Music, Rice University, University of Colorado Denver, Cleveland Cello Society, Memphis Chamber Music Society and Four Seasons Concerts in San Francisco. Festival appearances have included a recital with pianist Shai Wosner at Tanglewood, a recital at the Ascent Cello Festival in Cincinnati and a performance with James Ehnes and Orion Weiss at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival.
A dedicated and passionate teacher/ mentor, Schween was for many years on faculty at the Perlman Music Program and Interlochen Center for the Arts. This summer, she will make guest appearances at Meadowmount, Green Mt. Chamber Music Festival, Stringwood Chamber Music Camp in MN and the Academie Orford Musique in Quebec. Her solo recordings appear on the Arabesque and JRI labels.
