About

A native of New Jersey, cellist Zachary Mowitz made his solo debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in July 2018 as winner of the Greenfield Competition. He graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2018, where he studied with Carter Brey and Peter Wiley and served as principal cello of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra. He subsequently studied at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel with Gary Hoffman in Belgium, and at the Royal College of Music with Richard Lester. During the 2018/19 season, Zachary played in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra as Guest Principal Cello. He is currently an Associated Artist at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel and a Community Artist Fellow at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Experience

In the summer of 2022, Zachary performed at the Marlboro Music Festival. Having played with artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Donald Weilerstein, Hsin-Yun Huang, Ettore Causa, Robert McDonald, Ida Kavafian, Peter Wiley, Tara Helen O’Connor, and Roberto Diaz, Zachary has an intense passion for chamber music. In 2015, Zachary co-founded Trio St. Bernard, which was awarded Gold Prize at 2018 Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition. 

Zachary has also performed for series and festivals such as Gstaad Menuhin Festival, IMS Prussia Cove, Perlman Music Program, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Chesapeake Music Festival, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Four Seasons Winter Workshop, Taos School of Music, and Music from Angel Fire. In 2019 he co-founded ensemble132, a chamber music collective that presents innovative programs of their own exciting, original transcriptions of classical masterworks, paired with staples of the traditional chamber music repertoire. Valuing versatility and flexibility, ensemble132 presents a new combination of artists for each program, creating a fresh and uniquely energized experience with every concert.

Zachary has appeared throughout the United States, visiting halls such as the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall and Perelman Hall, Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium, Alice Tully Hall, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, and Johns Hopkins’ Shriver Hall. He has also toured extensively in Europe playing in venues such as the Salzburg Mozarteum, both halls of the Berlin Konzerthaus, Krzysztof Penderecki European Center for Music, Vienna Konzerthaus, Helsinki Music Centre, and London’s Cadogan Hall. One of these trips included the Curtis Institute of Music’s first major European chamber music tour in 2016 through Spain and Germany.

As a young musician he performed as soloist with orchestras throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He also appeared on Heifetz on Tour and the radio show From the Top, and has had performances broadcast by PBS and Philadelphia’s WHYY. In 2017, he was the subject of a feature story in the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Community Engagement

Personally invested in expanding the impact of classical music, Zachary has dedicated considerable time and energy to a community engagement programs. In 2018, he organized a benefit concert for immigrant families in partnership with ACLU and the Shut Down Berks Campaign, featuring musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra, Daedalus Quartet, and Curtis Institute. As a recipient of a 2017 Community Artist Project (CAP) grant from the Curtis Institute, Zachary piloted a program bringing joint presentations of interactive workshops on music arrangement with formal recitals to community venues throughout Philadelphia, including the Free Library of Philadelphia and Settlement Music School. He has also performed for Music For Food, Project Music Heals Us, public schools throughout New Mexico with Music From Angel Fire, Philadelphia's Project HOME (where he also led song-writing and arrangement workshops)..

More recently, Zachary has brought programs to the Community Center Arnaud Fraiteur for handicapped children and IRSA (Royal Institute for the Deaf and Blind) in Brussels. He helped produce ensemble132’s Benefit Concert for the Boston Resiliency Fund, supporting those most vulnerable to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Boston area. As a 2022-23 Curtis Community Artist Fellow, he worked with Philadelphia-area high school students to create works and performances that engage with climate justice, as well as with the Penn Memory Center and other community organizations. In March 2023, he will be sharing his work on climate at Western University and his work with people living with dementia for a Philadelphia Chamber Music Society event.

Looking Forward

A fervent advocate for new music and innovative programming, Zachary has premiered an array of new works by prominent and young composers alike, including the world premiere of Richard Danielpour’s string quintet Shattered Vessel at Music from Angel Fire in 2019. He has presented two newly commissioned works for solo cello by Nick DiBerardino and Zachary’s own father, Ira Mowitz, in a series of interactive lecture-recitals named Suite Talk. Nick and Zach have since captured the best of this program in a video series with Guarneri Hall. Nick and Zach also founded Nodality Music, an arts organization that cultivates direct links between artists and audiences with narrative-driven musical experiences. Nodality Music creates, commissions, performs, and advocates for new music, emphasizing authentic stories, human connections, and social impact.

Zachary was awarded First Prize in the 2020 World Bach Competition. In his spare time, Zachary enjoys exploring the endless world of podcasts and tossing a frisbee.