David Bowlin

Violinist David Bowlin has won critical acclaim for his performances of a wide range of repertoire from the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and many others. First prize winner of the 2003 Washington International Competition, Bowlin has performed with such leading artists as Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Jonathan Biss, Jeremy Denk, Robert McDonald, and members of the Juilliard, Emerson, and Brentano string quartets. His solo performances include premieres of violin concerti written for him at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival and at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and in recent seasons he has performed concerti at Miller Theater in New York, the Aspen Music Festival, and with the La Jolla Symphony. On air he has performed in broadcasts for WQXR New York, WFMT Chicago, Vermont Public Radio, and nationwide on NPR’s Performance Today.

Bowlin is a member of the Oberlin Trio with Oberlin faculty colleagues Amir Eldan and Haewon Song, with whom he released a recording of trios by Dvorak, Shostakovich, and Joan Tower in 2015. He is also a founding member of the highly acclaimed International Contemporary Ensemble, Musical America’s 2014 Ensemble of the Year, and a former member of the Naumburg award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players. 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 Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Ojai, SongFest, the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival, and the Four Seasons festival. As an ensemble leader he has performed as concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the IRIS Orchestra, the Juilliard Orchestra, and the Marlboro Festival Orchestra. His recordings can be found on the Bridge, Naxos, Mode, Arsis, and Oberlin Music labels.

Bowlin currently serves as Associate Professor of Violin and Director of String Studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and in the summer serves on the faculties of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and at the Banff Centre. Prior to coming to Oberlin in 2007, he taught at the Juilliard School as assistant to Ronald Copes of the Juilliard Quartet.

Bowlin is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Juilliard School, and Stony Brook University, and his major teachers include Roland and Almita Vamos, Ronald Copes, Pamela Frank, Ani Kavafian, Philip Setzer, and Stephen and Kimberly Meier-Sims.