Biography | Doris Hochscheid

Doris Hochscheid graduated with distinction under  Dmitrij Ferschtman in Amsterdam and subsequently studied with Melissa Phelps in London and Philippe Muller in Paris. She was awarded the ‘Prize for an outstanding cellist’ twice during the Tanglewood Festival in the United States.
With Asko|Schönberg, where she was a member from 1997 to 2017, she performed a number of solos, including Ligeti’s cello concerto and at the world premiers of cello concertos written for her by Dimitri Andrikopoulos, Martijn Padding, Chiel Meijering and Seung-Won Oh. She has performed in the Netherlands and internationally and has released a large number of CDs. She was part of The Stolz Quartet, with whom she performed, amongst other things, the successful musical theatre production ‘A love Unsung’.

Over the years, she has built up a repertoire of over one hundred and twenty pieces with pianist Frans van Ruth, ranging from J.S. Bach’s gamba sonatas to a growing number of pieces written especially for them. An overview of their repertoire can be found on  Frans van Ruth’s website.


In 2007, Doris Hochscheid and Frans van Ruth founded the Netherlands Cello Sonata Foundation to collect their work in the field of Dutch music under one organisation. In addition to compiling a complete online catalogue of Dutch music for cello and piano, this has also led to an extensive CD project, Dutch Cello Sonatas, in collaboration with major German CD label Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm (MDG). This series of eight CDs received rave reviews internationally as well as several awards. (www.cellosonate.nl)

Another remarkable initiative is their Album project, for which 30 Dutch composers wrote short duo pieces for children and older amateur musicians. In 2015 they toured around Indonesia for three weeks, where in addition to Dutch work they also performed new Indonesian pieces. (www.albumproject.nl)

In November 2014, Doris and Frans were the first to receive the Society for Friends of Dutch Music prize for “the exceptional and persuasive manner” in which they champion Dutch music. In October 2016 in Berlin, they received the prestigious ECHO Klassik for their CD series Dutch Cello Sonatas and in February 2017 they received a Knighthood in the Order of Oranje-Nassau for services to Dutch music by King Willem Alexander.

In 2018 Doris received a grant from the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts to develop herself in the field of musical theatre. In that year, she worked on a number of pilot projects. She did this with various artists, including theatre coach Ganna Poppea Veenhuysen, directors Mirjam Koen and Gerrit Timmers from OT Rotterdam and with video artist Pierre-Clément Nivière of Urbain Studio.

Doris Hochscheid also teaches Alexander technique at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (Amsterdam University of the Arts), as well as having her own private teaching practice.