Dr. Christopher Bowlby

Piano & Music Theory

Dr. Christopher Bowlby has performed in such prestigious venues as the Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall in New York City, Nordstrom Recital Hall in Benaroya Hall and Meydenbauer Center in Seattle, Atherton Recital Hall in Honolulu Public Radio, among others. His playing has been acclaimed for its warmth and integrity to the musical text. Recent engagements have included performances at the prestigious Salle Cortot in Paris, Castello Visconteo Sforzesco di Galiate, Italy, the SOU piano series in Oregon, Southern Louisiana Piano Festival, the Biblioteca Nacional de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, and he was invited to join the jury as part of the 2014 and 2016 Thalberg International Piano Competitions in Naples, Italy.

Previously a winner of several young artists’ and concerto competitions, he was featured on Public Radio stations as a speaker and pianist. His repertoire covers the iconic works of Brahms, Beethoven, Schumann and the like, as well as new works by living composers, including John Corigliano, Jeff Junkinsmith, Laura Kaminsky, David Mitchell, and Owen Bloomfield. Equally at home with chamber music literature, as a young pianist he performed Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in A major with Yo-Yo Ma. He was also featured as a guest pianist with the Rimsky Korsakov String Quartet during their tour in PNW in 2016, and regularly performs four-hand and duo piano music with his wife, Ivona Kaminska. Throughout his international studies, he has coached with such eminent artists as Marek Jablonski, Henri-Paul Sicsic, Eugene Skovorodnikov, Boris Berman, Patricia Michaelian, and Craig Sheppard.

Dr. Bowlby holds a Doctorate Degree in Music from the University of Washington and Masters from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Since 2000 Dr. Bowlby has established himself as one of the most sought-after piano pedagogues, lecturers, and adjudicators on the West Coast. Aside from his successful career as an instructor of talented students, Dr. Bowlby is also director and vice-president of the Seattle International Piano Festival and Competition, as well as program director of the Chopin Academy of Music in Issaquah, Washington. As an accomplished teacher of many award-winning students, in 2012, Dr. Bowlby was invited to present on a joint panel, the “Secrets of Winning a Competition” during the Music Teachers’ National Conference in NYC.

His secondary academic interest in music theory led him to study with some of today’s most prominent theorists, including Henry Klumpenhouwer, Richard Kurth, John Rahn, and Jonathan Bernard. Dr. Bowlby’s research led him to new discoveries of religious symbolic conveyance in Olivier Messiaen’s “Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus”.

Formerly, Dr. Bowlby was on the faculty of Mount Royal College in Richmond, Canada, University of British Columbia, Shoreline Community College and University of Washington, and has taught in the Ashland International Piano Institute in the University of Southern Oregon, Cornish Piano Institute in Seattle, and Tsar’s Village International Master Course in St. Petersburg, Russia, and at the Barcelona Piano Academy, Spain.