He then went on to study at the Juilliard School (New York) with Leonard Rose whose own teaching goes straight back to Luigi Boccherini (via Felix Salmond, Bernard Whitehouse, Alfredo Piatti and Gaetano Zanetti).

Lidström commissioned and gave the world premiere of Rolf Martinsson's first cello concerto on 20 April 2005 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mario Venzago.

He has given master classes at conservatories in San Francisco, Cleveland and Oberlin, as well as in Australia, Brazil, Spain, South America, Poland, Bulgaria, Denmark, the UK and Sweden.

Four sets of pieces for young players (Spooky Pieces, Traffic, Ballroom Dances and Hotel Suite), a concert suite (extract from his melodrama The Stamp King, premiered at the Wigmore Hall, London December 2010), Swedish Rhapsody (for Prime Minister Olof Palme, premiered at the Wigmore Hall December 2011), Sunflowers in the night and other love songs, and Le Cygne, in honour of Camille Saint-Saëns.

Of the many transcriptions for cello as well as other instrumental combinations, composers include Rameau, Chopin, Schumann, Puccini, Debussy, Kreisler, Scriabin and Cole Porter.

For his Suite de Pulcinella (cello and piano version of the 1949 orchestral score), Lidström has obtained a performance license from the Stravinsky estate.