American cellist Mark Kosower, born December 17, 1976, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to cellist and educator Paul Kosower and teacher Janet Kosower, built parallel careers on both sides of the Atlantic. After beginning cello lessons at age one and a half under his father’s guidance, he trained with Janos Starker at Indiana University, where he completed his undergraduate studies in 1998, and with Joel Krosnick of the Juilliard Quartet, earning a master’s degree from Juilliard in 2001.
During the middle years of the following decade he maintained a transatlantic schedule, serving as principal cellist of Germany’s Bamberg Symphony Orchestra while also teaching cello and chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory. In July 2010 he filled the long-vacant principal cello chair of the Cleveland Orchestra, unoccupied since 2003.
Kosower has appeared frequently as concerto soloist with leading American ensembles such as the Detroit, Buffalo, Houston, Seattle, Minnesota, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras, as well as with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the China National Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, the Orchestre de Paris, and the KwaZulu Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in Durban, South Africa. His recital engagements have included the Kennedy Center in New York, the Aspen Music Festival, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and venues across three additional continents. As a member of the Dolce Cello Trio he has toured with his father and sister. On the Naxos label he released a 2011 recording of the Ginastera Cello Concerto with the Bamberg Symphony. He is married to pianist Jee-Won Oh, who also graduated from Indiana University.
