Mary Rowell

Entrepreneur, Idea generator, Musician, Social entrepreneur, World traveler

Mary Rowell is considered by critics and colleagues to be one of the most important and exciting performers on the scene today. From her solo electric violin performances at the Troy Savings Bank and the New York State Theater to Central Park with Sheryl Crow and Friends to the stages of Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress, critics have described her playing as “amazing” and “fascinating”, and as a “versatile” performer who plays with “hyperactive brilliance”. As a soloist, Ms. Rowell has appeared with the National Symphony, Houston Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Northwest Arkansas Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, New York Chamber Orchestra, Eugene Symphony, Concordia Orchestra, the Vermont Symphony and the Albany (NY) based Dogs of Desire on traditional and electric violin. She performs frequently as soloist with the New York City Ballet where she has stunned the dance world with her brilliant solo electric violin performances of Richard Einhorn’s “Maxwell’s Demon”. She has toured performed and recorded with notables Joe Jackson, Todd Rundgren, Madonna, Sheryl Crow, Paula Cole, Billy Joel, John Lurie, Steve Coleman, The SILOS, The Tango Project, Scott Johnson, and many others. Ms. Rowell has toured the US, Europe and Japan as chamber musician and soloist and has performed in festivals including Grand Canyon Music Festival, PICA’s TBA Festival, Bang on a Can Marathons, Lincoln Center Festival, Serious Fun! at Lincoln Center, Schlesswig-Holstein Festival, Great Day in New York, and the Cabrillo Festival. Mary is a founding member of Ethel, received her BM and MM from Julliard and is currently concertmaster of both the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra and the Palm Beach Pops.

Empowering communities to take charge of their futures. Community Building. The Arts. Adventure. Creativity.

I had a conversation with a man who travels the US and raises money to support service men and women returning from Iraq (a noble cause to say the least). He commented that this was all he could do to help the war effort and bemoaned the fact that more Americans weren't signing up for the Armed Forces and there was a real lack of civic duty. It struck me and I responded that if more people were actively participating in finding ways to communicate and work together to find mutual respect, acceptance and appreciation of one another, having to force citizens to risk shortening their lives in order to force ideology whether governmental or religious would not be a necessity. After a few seconds the man said that he could not argue with that and for a brief moment I sensed the power of how this idea could really evolve our global world in a beautiful way.

Composer, Director, Performing Arts, Producer

I attended TED 2006 as a speaker with my colleagues in ETHEL. We are a string quartet actively creating and performing music of our time. Being that our mission puts us in a position of having to work outside of the box, the exposure to so many people who are also living and working outside the box was absolutely thrilling. So many ideas and concepts to discuss and just sit with among a group of people interested in doing, moving forward and enabling ideas to have a chance to see where they can go. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet and connect with people from very different fields and to discover that we find a way to help and enable each others mission. It was a wonderful oasis for we boundary breaking ETHELs and has given us fuel to continue to create and inspire.