Recognized for his “rich, alluring tone” and praised as “brilliant” (the New York Times), violinist David Bowlin has led a wide-ranging career as a soloist and chamber musician performing an expansive repertoire. First prize winner of the Washington International Competition, he has performed across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Among his dozens of world premieres are violin concerti written for him by Marcos Balter, Alexandra Hermentin, and Donald Crockett, with performances at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and at the Aspen Music Festival, respectively. In 2011 he made the premiere recording of Huang Ruo’s “Omnipresence” Concerto on the Oberlin Music label.
In addition to his performance profile, Bowlin is a dedicated teacher, and for 16 years served on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He will join the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in the fall of 2024. In the summer he teaches on the faculty of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and has also been faculty artist at the Bowdoin International Music Festival. He has given many masterclasses throughout the US and abroad, most recently at the Australian National Academy of Music, the Royal Danish Academy of Music, the Norwegian Academy, Malmö Academy of Music in Sweden, and the Kunstuniversität Graz.
As a chamber musician, Bowlin is a member of the Oberlin Trio and the Bowlin-Cho Duo. He was a founding member of the highly-acclaimed International Contemporary Ensemble and is a former member of the Naumburg award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players. Chamber music collaborations include guest performances with the Juilliard Quartet, with pianists Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Robert McDonald, Jonathan Biss, and Jeremy Denk, and with members of the Emerson and Brentano quartets. He has made several tours with Musicians from Marlboro and has been a guest artist with many organizations, including the Boston Chamber Music Society, ChamberFest Cleveland, the Banff Centre, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Ojai, SongFest, the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival, and the Four Seasons festival. He has performed as guest concertmaster with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the IRIS Chamber Orchestra, and the Marlboro Festival Orchestra.
Honors include the Samuel Baron Prize from Stonybrook University and the Samuel Sanders Prize from the Classical Recording Foundation, New York City. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, The Juilliard School, and Stony Brook University, where he studied with Pamela Frank, Ronald Copes, Philip Setzer, Ani Kavafian, and Roland and Almita Vamos.
