McDowell started playing the cello at the age of four-and-a-half; by the age of 10, he had won a scholarship to the
Yehudi Menuhin School. Only one year later, he made his first professional appearance in
Benjamin Britten's
The Turn of the Screw, in which he sang. Later, he attended Kingsway College of Further Education, the
Royal College of Music and the
Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He played with the London Youth Symphony Orchestra, the
London Schools Symphony Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra and London Youth Chamber Orchestra, until he was persuaded by
Wilf Gibson to join The Electric Light Orchestra.
Electric Light Orchestra career McDowell performed with the first live line-up of ELO in 1972 while only 19 years old, but left with founding member
Roy Wood and horn player/keyboardist Bill Hunt to perform with the group
Wizzard. During his time in Wizzard, he played both cello and
Moog synthesizer, but returned to ELO in 1973 to replace
Colin Walker. McDowell's return was partly motivated by a desire to play more cello and less keyboards, as he had done with Wizzard. He remained with the group until
Jeff Lynne removed the string players from the line-up; McDowell (alongside Gale) did, however, appear in promotional videos for the
Discovery album, despite not having played on the record. Around a decade after his dismissal from ELO, McDowell joined the group OrKestra, formed by fellow ELO alumni
Mik Kaminski and
Kelly Groucutt, and appeared alongside the pair in several televised performances. In 1991, former ELO drummer
Bev Bevan hired OrKestra as the opening act for the newly-formed
Electric Light Orchestra Part II's debut tour, although McDowell, Groucutt and Kaminski also played alongside Part II as a single eight-piece band during the tour, and are credited as full members of Part II in supplementary material. McDowell departed Part II after only a brief period, however, and he appears on neither of the group's studio albums.
Post-ELO life In 1980, McDowell played on the album
Gift Wrapped by former ELO cellist
Melvyn Gale, who had founded the group
Wilson Gale & Co. For a short time around 1982, he guested with
Radio Stars and participated in various recordings, including the single "My Mother Said" with the group. He was involved with computer programming and published a music composition program called
Fractal Music Composer in 1992. He developed a suite of four programs:
Mandelbrot Set Composer,
Julia Set Composer,
Mandelbrot Zoom and
Play Midi. ==Death==