Born in Stockholm, Sweden, currently living in London, Mats Lidstrom combines performing with teaching and composing. As a international soloist and chamber musician, he has gained a reputation for performances of great insight and virtuosity.The line of his own teachers goes straight back to Luigi Boccherini via Leonard Rose, Felix Salmond, Bernard Whitehouse, Alfredo Piatti and Gaetano Zanetti. His first teacher was Maja Vogl of the music conservatory in Gothenburg.

Compositions include Rigoletto Fantasy for cello and orchestra on Verdi’s opera, Interlude for string Quartet and orchestra, Maze of Love for voice, piano and orch., Réné Descartes in Stockholm for solo recorder, Carnival in Venice for violin and two cellos, My Heart Is In The East Raoul Wallenberg In Memoriam for solo cello, The Sea Of Flowers Is Rising Higher for solo cello in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Suite for solo cello. For cello and piano:  Spooky Pieces, Traffic, Hotel Suite, Ballroom Dances, Suite Tintin – 9 scenes from The Adventures of Tintin, and a concert suite from his melodram and book The Stamp King, published by CelloLid.com

Of the many transcriptions for cello as well as for other instrumental combinations, composers include Rameau, Schumann, Kreisler, Skryabin, J Strauss, Gershwin and Cole Porter. For his Suite de Pulcinella (cello and piano version of the 1949 orchestral score), Lidstrom has obtained a performance license from the Stravinsky estate.

Mats’ compilation for Boosey&Hawkes, The Orchestral Cellist, prompted the founding of his own publishing company, CelloLid.com. Besides his own compositions, it includes the series  if Bach was a cellist which lives the fantasy that everything Bach wrote, he wrote for the cello. CelloLid.com is distributed worldwide by Spartan Press.

Appointed professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1993 (Honorary Associate in 1998), Mats Lidstrom has given masterclasses at the conservatories in San Francisco, Cleveland and Oberlin, as well as in Australia, England (including the British National Youth Orchestra), Holland, Denmark, Spain, South America and Sweden. Prior to the Royal Academy, he taught    at the Gothenburg University, Sweden.

Appearances on TV and radio throughout Europe, and in Japan, the U.S (including two appearances on Andy Warhol’s TV show Interiors) and S America. Festivals include Aspen, Kingston, Pensacola (USA), Cello Encounter (Rio de Janeiro), Stift Festival (Holland), Open Strings (Denmark) and Aurora (Sweden).

As soloist he has performed with some of the world’s leading orchestra, including the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche S.O.Berlin, Czech Philharmonic and the Dallas Symphony, with conductors such as André Previn, Andrew Litton, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Leif Segerstam.
He has performed in many of the major halls as chamber musician, including Alice Tully Hall (Chamber Music Soc. of New York City), The Y (New York City), Théâtre du Châtelet and Cité de la Musique (Paris), Musikverein (Vienna), Gulbenkian (Lisbon) and the Wigmore-, Queen Elizabeth- and Royal Festival Halls of London.

He has worked as Principal Cellist with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, LSO, Philharmonia  and  Academy of St. Martin’s-in-the-fields of London, BBC SSO and Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchetstra,  Los Angeles and Oslo Philharmonic orchestras and the major orchestras of Sweden.

His passion for, and research of, neglected but beautiful music for his instrument, has resulted in several highly acclaimed and award-winning CD’s. Besides his own label CelloLid.com which has released the CD Suite Tintin and a DVD of the Brahms cello sonatas, he appears on EMI, Deutsche Grammophone, BIS, Hyperion, ASV, Musica Sveciae, Opus 3 and Caprice Records.

His ancestor Rickard Dybeck wrote the Swedish national anthem.
During the 2004-05 season, Mats Lidstrom was the Artistic Director of the festival From Sweden in London, the greatest undertaking for Swedish classical music abroad by the Swedish Government.