biography

American violist Matthew McDowell is a distinguished chamber musician and rising pedagogue. He has performed internationally alongside renown artists such as Martha Argerich, Gary Hoffman, Yura Lee, Miguel da Silva, Stella Chen, and members of the Berlin Philharmonic, playing chamber music in the worlds leading performance venues like Carnegie Hall, the Philharmonie de Paris, Kölner Philharmonie, Dortmund Konzerthaus, Victoria Hall, The Phillips Collection, the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, the Curtis Institute of Music, and many others.

Matthew is a founding member of the Amnis Piano Quartet, which won prizes at the 50th Annual Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, Yellow Springs Chamber Competition, Premio Renzo Giubergia Competition, Oneppo Chamber Competition, the Yale Society of Chamber Music Competition, and a fellowship at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival. Matthew has also competed as a soloist at Barbash J.S. Bach competition, Primrose International Viola Competition, Tertis International Viola Competition, and was a semi-finalist in the 2025 YCAT Competition.

Matthew’s engagements have taken him to the most important festivals throughout Europe and North America, concertizing at places like the Verbier Festival Soloist Academy, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Zermatt Festival, YellowBarn Festival, Schiermonnikoog Festival, Prussia Cove IMS, Tippet Rise Art Center, NUME Festival, Heidelberg Frühling, Festival Pablo Casals, Moritzburg Festival, Zwischentöne Kammermusik Festival, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Festival Santa Pietra, Geneva International String Academy, Chamberlab, Oropa Festival, Centrum, Festival de Bellerive, amongst others.  He has performed chamber repertoire with world renown artists such as Martha Argerich, Gary Hoffman, Yura Lee, Miguel da Silva, Stella Chen, Paul Watkins, Ivan Monighetti, Tai Murray, Sergey Ostrovsky, Xenia Jankovic, Gabor Takacs-Nagy, Renaud Capucon, Oleg Kaskiv, and members of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Matthew completed degrees with Ettore Causa at the Yale School of Music (MM '24, MMA '25) and is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium with Miguel da Silva.

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