Mary Cowell

Fixed 3rd Chair

Washington state native Mary Cowell is Colorado Symphony's 3rd chair violist. Raised in Everett, WA, Mary began playing the violin at age four, played in the local youth symphonies through middle school and continued studying at the Far Eastern Music Institute when her family moved to Vladivostok, Russia. After two years of living and studying in Russia, Mary returned to the US and became interested in playing viola after attending Olympic Music Festival located in Washington state's Olympic peninsula, run by founding members of the Philadelphia Quartet. She attended the University of Wyoming, where she earned her Bachelor's Degree in Viola Performance, and studied with James Przygocki. As a freshman Mary was accepted to the National Symphony Orchestra's Summer Music Institute where the student orchestra performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. While attending the University of Wyoming, she met her husband Myron, a music education student and also a violist. Between her years of study in Wyoming, Mary spent several summers at Indiana University, studying with Mimi Zweig. Together with her husband, they traveled to Gmunden, Austria in 2001 for a summer music institute at Schloss Ort, where Mary performed chamber music with members of the Dallas Symphony and other students from Europe and the US. After finishing school, she and her husband moved from Wyoming to Cleveland, Ohio where Mary attended the Cleveland Institute of Music and received a Professional Studies Certificate in viola performance, and studied with Jeffrey Irvine and Lynne Ramsey.

Mary spent the summer of 2004 playing in Breckenridge, CO in the National Repertory Orchestra, while Myron was house hunting in the North Denver area where he was hired to teach middle school orchestra. Mary won her position with the CSO in September of 2008. They have two children, Julia and Benjamin, and one dog, a German Short-haired Pointer named Monty.