Biography

Los Angeles and Seattle-based cellist and composer Olivia Marckx was the only female American cellist invited to participate in the 2026 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. She has soloed with the Seattle Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Cascade Symphony, Colburn Orchestra, and USC Thornton Symphony, among others, and performed at the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, the Colburn and Seattle Chamber Music Societies and live on the Violin Channel. Olivia has collaborated with artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Chee-Yun Kim, Jon Kimura Parker, Anthony Marwood, and Time for Three. 

As a composer, Olivia’s works, recognized as “Gorgeous…swirling yet measured beauty,” (Bandcamp) are brimming with luminous harmonies, whimsical textures, and idiomatic virtuosity. Also trained in Scottish folk music, Olivia spent time as a teenager busking at Seattle’s Pike Place Market where she learned firsthand how to engage passers-by with her music, aiming to not only draw a crowd, but to hold their attention. She strives to bring that authentic audience connection to the concert hall by creating music that compels people to listen.

Olivia is a winner of the 2026 USC Thornton New Music For Orchestra Competition, and also received honors at the 2024 NACUSA-LA National Composition Competition and the Seattle Festival Orchestra International Call for Scores. Her works have been commissioned/and or performed by Simone Porter, Tony Arnold, The Lyris String Quartet, and the Pacific, Thornton, South Coast and San Fernando Valley Symphonies and Seattle Festival Orchestra. Her music has been featured at the Aspen Music Festival, Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, New Music on the Point, and Carnegie Hall (Weill Hall).

Summer festivals include Yellow Barn, New Music on the Point, Bang on a Can, the Aspen Music Festival, Perlman Music Program and Heifetz Chamber Music Seminar. Olivia holds performance degrees (BM and MM) from the Colburn Conservatory, and is currently pursuing a double degree (DMA and MM) at USC’s Thornton School studying cello with Ralph Kirshbaum and composition with Donald Crockett.