Dr. Starkweather is the cello professor at the University
of Georgia School of Music where he has been teaching since 1983. He has performed on four
continents, appearing on television in Brazil and Moscow, and
playing on the radio in Geneva, Switzerland. In the United States
he has been featured on the National Public Radio show Performance
Today and in a PBS one hour recital program televised nationwide.
Starkweather was awarded a certificate of merit as semifinalist
in the 1986 Tchaikovsky Competition. Growing up near San Francisco,
Starkweather then attended the Eastman School of Music studying
cello with Robert Sylvester. This was followed by four years of
graduate work at the State University of New York at Stony Brook
studying with Bernard Greenhouse. In 1985 Starkweather spent six
months in Switzerland for intensive work with Pierre Fournier.
He spent ten summers performing in the Carmel Bach Festival, as
well as making recital and concerto appearances in various locales
worldwide, most recently including Germany, Brazil and Korea.
His cello is a Jean Baptiste Vuillaume from approximately 1830.
Dr. Starkweather teaches an active studio of cellists at the
University of Georgia School of Music. The learning environment
is enhanced by the new (1995) facilities for the school, including
three performing halls, beautiful rehearsal rooms and studios,
and state-of-the-art practice rooms. With 55 full-time music faculty,
the school provides an outstanding environment for music students.
Starkweather's repertoire includes the standard as well as some
rarely performed concertos; solo works by Bach, Kodály,
Cassadó, Bloch, Hindemith and others; a variety of sonatas
from the Baroque through Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and other
romantic composers, and sonatas of Debussy, Prokofiev,
Shostakovich, Britten, Carter, Martinu and others; also many short
pieces. His scholarly work has included preparation of an edition
of the original Locatelli sonatas which served as the source for
Piatti's well-known arrangement. DVDs of
the Bach Suites and a Bach edition have been released in 2008. He has recorded two compact
discs with pianist and colleague Evgeny Rivkin: one with Shostakovich
and Rachmaninov cello sonatas, and another with cello sonatas
of Beethoven, Brahms, and Britten.
