Amanda J. Kowalski
Amanda J. Kowalski is a bassist, photographer, and filmmaker from Wheeling, West Virginia. She received the first Sally Ann Forrester Scholarship in 2001 and moved to Nashville at 18 to study music business at Belmont University. She played bass in Adrienne Young's band, Little Sadie, and with Uncle Earl, Tony Trischka, Abigail Washburn, and Darol Anger. She left music around 2005 to study photography at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine. She returned to bass in 2009 as a founding member of Della Mae, the Boston band she and fiddler Kimber Ludiker first conceived at a fiddle camp. She left Della Mae in March 2012 to concentrate on photography and video work. Her photographs have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and on NPR.org, and she co-founded the production company SoundLight Media with Samantha Broun in 2010. She lives in New Hampshire and performs occasionally with local bands, including Cecil Abels and the New England Bluegrass Band.