Biography

Cellist Madelyn Kowalski grew up in the Pacific Northwest of the USA and is currently based in the UK, pursuing her masters degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS), where she has been studying with Alison Wells since 2016. Madelyn has performed numerous concerts as a duo with pianist Maurizio Arroyo Reyes – last year the duo played on BBC Radio 3 and recorded virtual concerts with Chamber Music Scotland. She has worked with many artists including Steven Isserlis, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Ralph Kirshbaum and has attended festivals and masterclass programmes at IMS Prussia Cove and Open Chamber Music in the UK, and Yellow Barn and Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in the USA. She has collaborated in other chamber music projects with Joseph Swensen and members of the Brodsky Quartet and the Hebrides Ensemble. Passionate about working with contemporary composers, in 2019 as part of a small ensemble, she premiered a work written and conducted by Sir James MacMillan for HRH Prince Charles’s seventieth birthday, and in the fall of 2020 had the pleasure of giving the Scottish premier of Errollyn Wallen’s cello concerto. In 2018, Madelyn received second place in the Concours International de Violoncelle ‘Tremplin’ in Paris and in 2019 was awarded second prize in the Cavatina Intercollegiate Chamber Music Competition in London. She has also won many other prizes at the RCS and is the recipient of an ABRSM International Postgraduate Scholarship, the Musicians’ Company’s 2021 Silver Medal, and awards from the William Syson and Hattori foundations and Help Musicians.

Page Updated: April 2022

Musicians’ Company Award: Silver Medal – Royal College of Scotland 2021

Photo Credit: Robert McFadzean