biography

American violist Matthew McDowell began his musical endeavors at the age of four on violin, and later shifted his focus to the viola. His primary teachers have included pedagogues such as Ettore Causa, Ivan Vukčević, Miguel da Silva, Boris Abramov, and Gérard Caussé.

Matthew is a founding member of the Amnis Piano Quartet, which won the bronze medal at the 50th Annual Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, Grand Prize and Audience Prize at the Yellow Springs Chamber Competition, third prize at the Premio Renzo Giubergia Competition, the Oneppo Chamber Competition, a fellowship at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and the Yale Society of Chamber Music Competition.  In addition, Amnis was announced as semi-finalists for the 2024 Concert Artists Guild Competition, were finalists at the Coltman competition, and were selected as finalists for the 2025 Schoenfeld International Competition.  Matthew was also named a finalist in the Barbash J.S. Bach competition, quarter-finalist in the 2024 Primrose International Viola Competition, competed in the 2025 Tertis International Viola Competition, and was a semi-finalist in the 2025 YCAT Competition.

Matthew’s travels have taken him to major festivals throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico, concertizing at places like the Verbier Festival Soloist Academy, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Zermatt Festival, NUME Festival, YellowBarn, Festival Pablo Casals, Moritzburg Festival, Zwischentöne Kammermusik Festival, Festival Santa Pietra, Geneva International String Academy, Chamberlab, Centrum, and many others.  He has performed chamber repertoire with world renown artists such as Martha Argerich, Sir András Schiff, Yura Lee, Miguel da Silva, Paul Watkins, Ivan Monighetti, Tai Murray, Sergey Ostrovsky, Xenia Jankovic, Gabor Takacs-Nagy, Renaud Capucon, and Oleg Kaskiv.

Matthew recently completed an MMA degree with Ettore Causa at the Yale School of Music ('25) and is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium with Miguel da Silva.

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