Sophie Rowell

Born in Adelaide, Sophie Rowell studied at the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney with Alice Waten before undertaking an Artist’s Diploma at the Cologne Hochschule for Musik with the Alban Berg Quartet. She has also participated in masterclasses with renowned violinists and chamber musicians, including Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Walter Levin (LaSalle Quartet) and Norbert Brainin (Amadeus Quartet.)

In 2000, Sophie won the Symphony Australia Young Performer's Award, and has since had solo engagements with all the major Australian orchestras, and in France. In 1999 she was awarded Second Prize in the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg and has also won New Zealand's Gisborne Music Competition, the Dorothy Fraser Scholarship, the Richard Goldner Scholarship and the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship.

As the first violinist of the Australian String Quartet (formerly Tankstream Quartet 2000-2006) she has given concerts and been broadcast throughout Australia, Europe, North America, Japan and New Zealand. The Quartet were the winners of the 2005 Cremona String Quartet Competition and the 2002 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition.

Sophie has been Guest Concertmaster with the Adelaide, Melbourne, and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras and in Jena, Germany. She is a member of the Elder Trio with Lucinda Collins (piano) and Janis Laurs (cello) at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide where she is a member of the string faculty.