Cello Sonatas

Steven Honigberg is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music where he studied with Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins. Hired under the leadership of Mstislav Rostropovich, he is currently a member of the National Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Honigberg has given recent recitals in Washington DC at the Dumbarton Concert Series, at the Phillips Collection, at the National Gallery of Art, and recitals in New York and throughout the United States. In Chicago (his home town) he has appeared on radio WFMT, at the Ravinia Festival, and as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Ars Viva Orchestra, Lake Forest Symphony and New Philharmonic Orchestra among others. In October 2014 Honigberg performed Andrzej Panufnik's Cello Concerto with conductor Marek Mos in Warsaw, Poland. He has appeared most recently in Washington, in 2015, as soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra in two performances at the Kennedy Center of Krzysztof Penderecki's Triple Cello Concerto with the NSO's Music Director Christoph Eschenbach. In 2009 Mr. Honigberg performed Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Cello Concerto with the NSO and won rave reviews for the 1988 world premiere of David Ott's Concerto for Two Cellos conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich and the National Symphony with repeat performances on two NSO United States tours. Mr. Honigberg was the Director of the Chamber Music series at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC for eight years (40 concerts) where he premiered a number of new works by such composers as Lukas Foss, Benjamin Lees, Robert Starer and David Diamond. He participated in extensive recordings of concerts held at the museum, including four recordings of music from the music series in addition to CDs of Korngold and Ernst Toch's chamber music. He has recorded extensively with the Potomac String Quartet, including the nine string quartets composed by American Quincy Porter and the eleven quartets of David Diamond which John von Rein, music critic for the Chicago Tribune, chose as one of his top 20 CDs for 2003. Honigberg has also recorded the complete works of Beethoven for cello and piano, and the complete work of Chopin for cello and piano with his mother, Carol Honigberg. From 1990-2009, Honigberg was principal cellist, chamber music director of the Edgar M. Bronfman series in Sun Valley, Idaho where he was featured as soloist with the summer symphony in concerti by Barber, Bartok, Bloch, Boccherini, Dvorak, Elgar, Goldschmidt, Haydn, Korngold, Popper, Saint-Saens, Schumann, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky and Walton. In the summer of 2014 Mr. Honigberg was professor of cello in an International Course of study in Valbonne Sophia Antipolis, France. Mr. Honigberg is a member of Gerard Schwarz's All-Star Orchestra, which in August 2012 convened in New York City to record 8 one-hour programs for PBS television. He is also a member of the Smithsonian Chamber Society, PostClassical Ensemble and the Phillips Camerata. Honigberg has collaborated in chamber music with such well-known musicians as violinist Hilary Hahn, and pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Jon Nakamatsu, James Tocco and Shai Wosner. As author, in 2010 his first book was published: Leonard Rose: America's Golden Age and It's First Cellist. Honigberg performs on a Lorenzo Storioni cello made in Cremona in 1789.