Cellist David Starkweather has a distinguished international career as performer and professor.  He was awarded a certificate of merit as semifinalist in the 1986 Tchaikovsky Competition, and is professor of cello at the University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music in Athens where he has been on the faculty since 1983.  Starkweather grew up in the San Francisco bay area.  He attended UC Davis and the Eastman School of Music, followed by graduate studies with cellist Bernard Greenhouse at SUNY Stony Brook, earning a doctorate degree in 1983.

In 1985 Starkweather spent six months in Switzerland with Pierre Fournier, receiving the French cellist’s accolade, “I feel a privilege to give my personal appreciation to David Starkweather for his great sincere talent as a wonderful cellist and for his pure talent as an interpreter at the devotion of music and one of the best cellists of his generation.”  Bernard Greenhouse of the Beaux Arts Trio wrote, “For David Starkweather, affection and admiration for his fine playing.”

Starkweather’s 3-DVD set of the Bach Six Suites was awarded a University of Georgia Creative Research medal in 2009, and was also released as a CD set.  His Bach Suites Manuscripts Edition was awarded the UGA Albert Christ Janer Creative Research Award in 2022, and is available at his website, starkweatherdavid.com.  His compact disc recordings with pianist Evgeny Rivkin feature sonatas by Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, Beethoven, Brahms, and Britten.  Additionally, numerous video recordings are available on Starkweather’s YouTube channel including Bloch Schelomo and the Kodály solo sonata.  Starkweather has performed and taught at festivals in Canada, Italy, Serbia, Germany, Korea, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and the United States, including ten seasons with the Carmel Bach Festival.  The cello he has played since 1975 is a Jean Baptiste Vuillaume from circa 1840.