Biography

Cellist Astrid Schween has gained a rich following and 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 appeared at many of the world’s great concert halls, recorded for SONY Records, 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 The Strad Magazine, and Strings Magazines, and was a special guest speaker on the topic of Women in Music at the Library of Congress. In 2024, Astrid Schween contributed a series of instructional videos for the popular platform ToneBase.

As a member of the Lark Quartet, Astrid Schween received the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and Gold Medal at the Shostakovich International Competition. She and her colleagues were mentored by the Juilliard, Guarneri, Budapest, Amadeus, Borodin, Paganini, Galimir and La Salle quartets, recorded more than a dozen CDs and commissioned numerous composers including Jennifer Higdon, Aaron Jay Kernis and Peter Schickele.

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 performance with Rudolf Serkin and Joshua Bell.

Astrid Schween’s recent cello recitals and master classes have taken her to Houston, Denver, Cleveland, Memphis, Cincinnati and San Francisco. Her recent festival appearances have included Tanglewood, where she performed in recital with Shai Wosner, and the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, where she collaborated with James Ehnes and Orion Weiss.

A dedicated and passionate teacher/ mentor, Astrid Schween was for many years on faculty at the Perlman Music Program and Interlochen Center for the Arts. She is an advocate for children’s education in the arts and avid supporter of The Sphinx Organization, Project Step, Project Music Heals Us, CelloBello, The Musical Mentors Collaborative and Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program. Her numerous recordings appear on the Sony, Arabesque, Decca/Argo, CRI, New World, JRI, Centaur, NAR, and Point labels.