CelloBello is thrilled to announce the return of the Audition Preparation Workshop (Nov. 1st to Nov. 14th)!

Drawing on their vast experiences as soloists, chamber musicians, and world-renowned teachers, this two-week intensive features master classes, private lessons, and panel discussions centered around helping young students prepare for their upcoming undergraduate auditions. Our workshop faculty include:

  • Astrid Schween (The Juilliard School)
  • Edward Arron (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
  • Julia Lichten (Manhattan School of Music)
  • Laurence Lesser (New England Conservatory)
  • Norman Fischer (Shepherd School of Music at Rice University)
  • Paul Katz (New England Conservatory)
  • Seth Parker Woods (University of Buffalo and the Kaufman Music Center in New York City)
  • Steven Doane (Eastman School of Music)

Whether you are a high school student planning ahead for upcoming undergraduate auditions, a seasoned teacher looking to help prepare your students, or a parent seeking audition guidance for their child, this workshop is designed to give you tools to demystify the conservatory and music school audition process and to help you play a fantastic audition for the school of your dreams.

Please note:

  1. All events will be held between 6:30 pm and 10:00 pm ET. Sunday events may be scheduled for the afternoon.
  2. All private lessons will be scheduled based on mutual availability between the teacher and student.

for student participants

Upon acceptance into the workshop, participants:

  • Will receive two opportunities for individual feedback either through private lessons, masterclasses or a combination of the two.
  • Can attend all masterclasses and participate in all panel discussions.
  • Will have access to archived footage of group classes and panel discussions for later viewing, available through the end of 2021.

Video Application Requirements

CelloBello will accept as many students as possible, but needs to keep enrollment small enough to make the 2-week experience personal and valuable.
2 short movements of contrasting style or 5-10 minutes of a movement of a concerto.

Piano accompaniment is encouraged but not required, where it applies.

Applications for students are due by October 18th!

Fee Structure

Application: Free
Tuition: $500 after acceptance
Financial Assistance: Available to accepted participants with need

Click the button below to begin the application process including your video performance link.

Apply Now!

for auditors

In response to requests from parents, teachers, and in order to include students who may not be accepted as playing participants, CelloBello also offers an auditing-only package. For a fee of $200, auditors have access to all masterclasses and panel discussions, including archives for later-viewing.

Sign Up as an Auditor Today!

schedule

Monday, November 1st 2021 | 6:30 – 8:00 pm ET:
Panel Discussion: How to Practice – Preparing a Large Amount of Repertoire
with Paul Katz, Seth Parker Woods, and Steven Doane

Tuesday, November 2nd 2021 | 8:30 – 10:30 pm ET:
Master Class – Laurence Lesser

Wednesday, November 3rd 2021 | 6:30 – 8:30 pm ET:
Master Class – Julia Lichten

Thursday, November 4th 2021 | 8:30 – 10:30 pm ET:
Master Class – Norman Fischer

Friday, November 5th 2021 | 6:30 – 8:00 pm ET:
Panel Discussion: Tips for Successful Audition Recordings
with Edward Arron and Norman Fischer

Saturday, November 6th 2021 | 6:30 – 8:30 pm ET:
Master Class – Edward Arron

Sunday, November 7th 2021 | 4:30 – 6:30 pm ET:
Master Class – Seth Parker Woods

Monday, November 8th 2021 | 8:30 – 10:00 pm ET:
Panel Discussion: What are Conservatories and Music Schools Looking For and How to Select Your School
with Astrid Schween, Julia Lichten and Laurence Lesser

Tuesday, November 9th 2021 | 6:30 – 8:30 pm ET:
Master Class – Steven Doane

Thursday, November 11th 2021 | 8:30 – 10:30 pm ET:
Master Class – Astrid Schween

Saturday, November 13th 2021 | 2:00 – 4:00 pm ET:
Master Class – Paul Katz

meet our 2021 workshop faculty!

ASTRID SCHWEEN
The Juilliard School

Cellist Astrid Schween has gained a rich following and enjoys a varied career as a soloist, chamber artist and teacher. Since joining the Juilliard String Quartet in 2016, she has appeared at many of the world’s great concert halls including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Vienna Musikverein, Berlin Konzerthaus, Wigmore Hall, Tokyo’s Yamaha Hall, at Lincoln Center, The 92nd Street Y, Ravinia, Tanglewood, the Kennedy Center, and in Hong Kong, Singapore, Greece, China, Spain, Holland, Denmark, Norway and throughout Canada and the US.

At the age of 16, Astrid Schween made her concerto debut with the New York Philharmonic and conductor, Zubin Mehta, who also arranged a special invitation for her to study privately in London with the legendary cellist, Jacqueline DuPre. With degrees from the Juilliard School, Schween received her primary training under the guidance of Leonard Rose, Harvey Shapiro, Channing Robbins, Ardyth Alton and Dr. H.T. Ma, with additional studies under Bernard Greenhouse and Eugene Moye. She performed in master classes for Philippe Muller and William Pleeth, and also participated in the Marlboro Music Festival.

Astrid Schween maintains a lively solo performance schedule in addition to her extensive touring with the Juilliard String Quartet. She recently performed the Elgar Concerto with the Boulder Philharmonic and received recital and master class invitations from Tanglewood, the Eastman School of Music, Boston Conservatory, Violoncello Society of New York, Cleveland Cello Society, and has been featured in Strings and Strad magazines, on NPR, and was a guest speaker on the topic, “Women in Music” at the Library of Congress.
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A dedicated and passionate teacher and mentor, Astrid Schween is a member of the Cello Faculty at Juilliard and the Perlman Music Program. She is represented by Thomas Gallant.

EDWARD ARRON
University of Massachusetts Amherst

A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, cellist Edward Arron made his New York recital debut in 2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since that time, he has appeared in recital, as a soloist with major orchestras, and as a chamber musician throughout North America, Europe and Asia. The 2021-22 season marks Mr. Arron’s 13th season as the artistic director and host of the acclaimed Musical Masterworks concert series in Old Lyme, Connecticut. He is also the co-artistic director with his wife, pianist Jeewon Park, of the Performing Artists in Residence series at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Mr. Arron tours and records as a member of the renowned Ehnes Quartet, and he appears regularly at the Caramoor International Music Festival, where he has been a resident performer and curator of chamber music concerts for over a quarter of a century. In 2013, he completed a ten-year residency as the artistic director of the Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert, a chamber music series created in 2003 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Museum’s prestigious Concerts and Lectures series. In January of 2021, Mr. Arron’s recording of Beethoven’s Complete Works for Cello and Piano with pianist Jeewon Park was released on the Aeolian Classics Record Label. The recording received the Samuel Sanders Collaborative Artists Award from the Classical Recording Foundation. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Mr. Arron currently serves on the faculty at University of Massachusetts Amherst.

JULIA LICHTEN
Manhattan School of Music

Julia Lichten enjoys a varied career as soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, and teacher and coach in the New York area. She received degrees from Harvard-Radcliffe and the New England Conservatory, followed by two years of study at the Mannes College of Music. Her major teachers were Mischa Nieland and Paul Tobias. A member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra since 1995, she has toured as a soloist with Orpheus, as well as with Musicians from Marlboro and the American Chamber Players.

She has performed at the festivals of Marlboro, Tanglewood, Taos, Library of Congress, Caramoor, Rockport, and Evian; performs frequently with the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society; and has taught at Kneisel Hall, the Mannes Beethoven Institute, and the Perlman Music Program. An active recitalist, she has performed in such venues as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton universities and toured Europe under State Department sponsorship as an Artistic Ambassador. She has recorded for the Marlboro Recording Society, Arabesque, Koch International Classics, Music Masters, Sony Classical, and Deutsche Grammophon. A member of the Manhattan School of Music cello faculty since 1989, she also serves on the faculty of the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College.

LAURENCE LESSER
New England Conservatory

A member of the New England Conservatory faculty since 1974, and president of the school from 1983 through 1996 (following a year as artistic director), Laurence Lesser teaches College and Preparatory cello students and brings unique value to the chamber music experience at NEC and in Boston through his artistic direction of the First Monday at Jordan Hall concert series since 1985.

In 2010, Bridge records issued Lesser’s recording with pianist HaeSun Paik of Beethoven’s complete music for cello and piano. The comprehensive documentation embraced by this three-disc collection includes two audio CDs as well as the DVD Behind the Beethoven Project with biographical material, a discussion of this repertoire, and clips from concerts held in Korea immediately following the recording sessions in NEC’s Jordan Hall.

Laurence Lesser was a top prize winner in the 1966 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and a guest performer in the historic Heifetz-Piatigorsky concerts and recordings. In 1976 he gave the premiere of Menotti’s Fantasia (written for him under a Ford Foundation grant) with the New Japan Philharmonic under Seiji Ozawa; in 1991, he performed the New England premiere with the NEC Symphony conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich. He has been a soloist with the BSO, the London Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and other major orchestras. He has appeared at the Casals, Spoleto, Marlboro, Charleston, and Santa Fe festivals as well as London’s South Bank Summer Music Festival.

In 1994, Lesser was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2005,he was named a “Chevalier du Violoncelle” by the Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center at Indiana University, awarded for distinguished achievements and contributions to the world of cello playing and teaching.

Laurence Lesser occupies a teaching chair endowed by the estate of Walter W. Naumburg.

NORMAN FISCHER
Shepherd School of Music at Rice University

Grammy-award winning cellist Norman Fischer has concertized on five continents and in 49 of the 50 United States. His 1983 New York solo debut of the Bach Six Suites in one evening was hailed by New York Times critic John Rockwell as “inspiring”.

Mr. Fischer was cellist with the Concord String Quartet through its 16-year career and winner of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, two Grammy nominations and an Emmy. In over 1000 concerts the quartet performed 18 Bartok cycles, 36 Beethoven cycles and premiered 50 works. They also recorded 40 works for RCA Red Seal, Vox, Nonesuch and CRI. Mr. Fischer’s chamber music expertise has led to performances with many of the major chamber ensembles and chamber music series in the US. He has also served on many competition juries including the Premio Paolo Borciani, Naumburg, M-Prize, Fischoff, and Banff International String Quartet competitions.

Mr. Fischer is the cellist with the Fischer Duo, a group with pianist Jeanne Kierman that was founded 50 years ago in 1971. The Duo specializes in both the classical masterworks of Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann as well as music of our own time. They have over a dozen recordings, and continue to actively perform throughout the United States and abroad.

Mr. Fischer is currently Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Cello and Director of Chamber Music at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston. Mr. Fischer also holds the Charles E. Culpepper Foundation Master Teacher Chair and is Head of Chamber Music at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he has been on the summer faculty since 1985. Mr. Fischer performs on a cello made for him by Sergio Peresson in 1972, and bows made for him by David Hawthorne. He is also a Larsen Performing Artist and uses “Il Cannone” strings.

PAUL KATZ
New England Conservatory

Paul Katz is known for his 26-year career as cellist of the internationally acclaimed Cleveland Quartet; as a world-renown teacher of his instrument; for his featured role mentoring young cellists in the made for PBS film Talent Has Hunger; and as Founder and Artistic Director of CelloBello.org, the world’s leading online resource center for cellists. As soloist Katz has played throughout North America, Europe and China. Of special interest to cellists is the Cleveland Quartet’s recording of the Schubert Quintet for two cellos with Paul Katz and Yo-Yo Ma.

The Cleveland Quartet were the first classical artists ever to appear on the Grammy Awards Telecast (1973); performed at the White House; were subjects of a major documentary, “In the Mainstream-The Cleveland Quartet”; and made 70 major label recordings, many of which received distinctions including Best of the Year Awards from Time Magazine and Stereo Review, 11 Grammy nominations and 2 Grammy Awards.

In 2010, with the support of WGBH in Boston and NEC, Katz created CelloBello.org, building a global cello community and serving all cellists and enthusiasts world-wide with the highest level of musical instruction, inspiration and interaction.

A student of Gregor Piatigorsky, János Starker, Bernard Greenhouse, Gabor Rejto and Leonard Rose, he played in the historic 1962 Pablo Casals Master Class in Berkeley, California.

Since 2001, Katz has taught at the New England Conservatory, where he is on the cello and chamber music faculties and is Director of NEC’s Professional String Quartet Training Program.

SETH PARKER WOODS
University of Buffalo and the Kaufman Music Center in New York City

Hailed by The Guardian as “a cellist of power and grace” who possesses “mature artistry and willingness to go to the brink,” cellist Seth Parker Woods has established a reputation as a versatile artist straddling several genres. In addition to solo performances, he has appeared with the Ictus Ensemble (Brussels, BE), Ensemble L’Arsenale (IT), zone Experimental (CH), Basel Sinfonietta (CH), Ensemble LPR, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the Atlanta and Seattle Symphony’s. A fierce advocate for contemporary arts, Woods has collaborated and worked with a wide range of artists ranging from the likes of Louis Andriessen, Elliott Carter, Heinz Holliger, G. F. Haas, Helmut Lachenmann, Klaus Lang, and Peter Eötvos to Peter Gabriel, Sting, Lou Reed, Dame Shirley Bassey, and Rachael Yamagata to such visual artists as Ron Athey, Vanessa Beecroft, Jack Early, Adam Pendleton, and Aldo Tambellini.

In the 2021-22 season, Woods joins the faculty at the University at Buffalo as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Visiting Professor. He previously served on the music faculties of the University of Chicago, Dartmouth College and the Chicago Academy of the Arts. He holds degrees from Brooklyn College, Musik Academie der Stadt Basel, and a PhD from the University of Huddersfield. In the 2020-21 season he was an Artist in Residence with the Kaufman Music Center, and from 2018-2020 he served as Artist in Residence with Seattle Symphony and Creative Consultant for the interactive concert hall, Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center.

His debut solo album, asinglewordisnotenough (Confront Recordings-London), has garnered great acclaim since its release in November 2016 and has been profiled in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, The Guardian, 5against4, I Care If You Listen, Musical America, Seattle Times, and Strings Magazine, amongst others.

STEVEN DOANE
Eastman School of Music

Internationally known soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, recording artist, and pedagogue Steven Doane appears at festivals and on concert series throughout the United States and overseas. Doane received his BM from Oberlin Conservatory and his MM from SUNY Stony Brook. He received a Watson Foundation Grant for overseas study in 1975, and had further studies with Richard Kapuscinski, Bernard Greenhouse, Jane Cowan, and Janos Starker.

Steven Doane and Eastman pianist Barry Snyder have made a series of recordings for the Bridge label. The duo’s recording of the complete music of Gabriel Fauré for cello and piano was awarded the Diapason D’or in France, and has been broadcast throughout the United States and Canada, over the BBC in England, and throughout Europe. The second recording in the series, of works by Britten and Frank Bridge, was also released to critical acclaim. New releases on Bridge include the Rachmaninoff Sonata with Barry Snyder (May 2012) and Britten Solo Suites (due for release in 2013).

Steven Doane received Eastman’s Eisenhart Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1993, and the Piatigorsky Prize in teaching at the New England Conservatory in 1986. As a member of the New Arts Trio, Doane was awarded the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1980. He made his Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center debuts in Don Quixote with David Zinman and the Rochester Philharmonic in 1983. His Tully Hall recital debut occurred in 1990, and has been followed by numerous recital appearances, including programs in London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Saunders Theater, and many other venues. Steven Doane currently holds the title of “visiting professor” at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he has done several residencies.