Mary Dowd

Violin-Viola-Voice-Piano

Mary Dowd is a vocalist, violinist, violist, and keyboard player based in the Lincoln area. She loves playing and singing in ensembles while making music in every time period from Medieval to Contemporary. Mary has been teaching voice, upper strings, and piano in her private studio since 2013.

Mary first became interested in music at the age of 7 when she started taking private viola lessons and piano lessons a year later. When injuries later prevented Mary from playing viola and piano, she started voice lessons because she couldn’t imagine life without music. Mary later recovered from tendinitis and carpal tunnel, and plays till this day, but this made her passionate about teaching others to play in a healthy and injury free manner. 

Mary holds a Bachelors of Arts in Vocal Performance with a minor in Political Science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. During her time there, Mary competed and placed in NATS and was a finalist in the Glenn-Korff Concerto Competition. She also participated in over seven ensembles, splitting her time between orchestra, chamber music, choir, and opera. Mary has studied with Dr. Dawn Krogh, Dr. Kathleen Butler, and Clark Potter.

An active part of her community, Mary is also part of the Lincoln Music Teachers Association (LMTA), where she serves as a board member, the Nebraska Music Teachers Associations (NMTA) and is also a Music Outreach Program (MOP) Teacher. Recently, Mary has also started her Suzuki training as she is an advocate of the Suzuki philosophy, “Every child can learn.”