BIOGRAPHY
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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.
A laureate at many competitions nationally and internationally, he has
soloed with the Georgia Philharmonic and Ocala Symphony, playing major pieces
from the viola repertoire. As a chamber musician, 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 the most important festivals throughout
Europe, the United States, and Mexico, concertizing at places like the Verbier Festival Soloist Academy, Gstaad Menuhin Festival ('22, '24, GFO '25), Zermatt Festival ('24, '25), YellowBarn Festival, NUME Festival, Festival Pablo Casals, Moritzburg Festival, Zwischentöne Kammermusik Festival, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Festival Santa Pietra, Geneva International String Academy ('23, '24), Chamberlab, Oropa Festival, Centrum, Festival de Bellerive, amongst others. He has performed chamber repertoire with world renown artists such as Martha Argerich, Sir András Schiff, 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, in iconic halls like Carnegie Hall, the Phillips Collection,
the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, Field Hall at the Curtis Institute of Music, Williams Hall at NEC, Victoria Hall, the Philharmonie de Paris, and the Kulturpalast Dresden.
Matthew has benefitted from masterclasses and studies with preeminent
pedagogues like Antoine Tamestit, Lawrence Powers, Micha Afkham, Isabel Charisius, Gerard Causse, Garth Knox, Kirill Gerstein, Gabor Takacs-Nagy, Alessio Bax, Phil Setzer, Hsin-Yun Huang, Noémie Bialobroda, and Klaus Hellwig.
As an orchestral musician, Matthew has performed as principal violist in ensembles across the U.S. and Europe, including as principal violist of the Yale Philharmonia under Peter Oundjian and Leonard Slatkin, principal violist for the Orchestre Nationale de Jeunes of Luxembourg and their consequent tour in Luxembourg and the Netherlands, principal viola for the Moritzburg Festival Orchestra (Moritzburg, Dresden), and as principal viola for the Peace Orchestra Project with concerts in Biella, Bologna, Locarno, Rimini, and at the Philharmonie de Paris with performers like Martha Argerich, Marc Andre-Hamlin, and Ricardo Castro.
Matthew graduated summa cum laude as a double major from
Columbus State University’s Schwob School of Music,
attaining the highest possible academic and artistic accolades.
He next studied at the International Menuhin Music Academy (Switzerland)
and then completed at master's degree at Yale University ('24)
receiving the Yale Alumni Association Prize.
Matthew recently completed an MMA degree with Ettore Causa at the Yale School of Music ('25) and is an Artist-in-Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium with Miguel da Silva.