David Starkweather 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.  He was awarded a certificate of merit as semifinalist in the 1986 Tchaikovsky Competition.

 Starkweather grew up in the San Francisco bay area.  He attended the Eastman School of Music, followed by graduate studies with cellist Bernard Greenhouse at the State University of New York at 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 wrote, “My student for four years, David Starkweather has given me great pleasure as a gifted cellist, a fine person, and a dignified young artist.”  A review in Atlanta praised "the sensitive phrasing and Starkweather's obvious technical facility."

Starkweather’s 3-DVD set of the Bach Six Suites received a UGA Creative Research medal in 2009, and has since then been released as a CD set.  Two CDs with pianist Evgeny Rivkin are available at Apple Music and Spotify, featuring sonatas by Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, Beethoven, Brahms, and Britten.  Additionally, numerous video recordings are available on Starkweather’s YouTube channel.  The cello he has played since 1975 is a Jean Baptiste Vuillaume from c. 1840.