Martin Andrew John Watkinson was born in Moscow, ID on January 28, 1989. He initially chose to play the violin at "Giant Steps", the pre-school he was attending in Moscow, ID. Within one year at the age of 5 Martin switched over to cello because he wanted to sit down and play.
In 1995 Martin began private cello lessons using the Suzuki method instructed by Linda Wharton of Moscow, ID.
Early in 2001 Martin Won a Gold Medal award for the best classical performance at the Spokane Music festival in Washington State at the age of 12. From 2001 thru 2004 he performed with the Moscow Youth Symphony under the instruction of Sheila Kilcoyne. In 2002 Martin was selected as a cellist for The American Cello Congress Youth Orchestra conference in Arizona and also selected to perform for the Moscow Mayor’s Art Commission awards.
Throughout high school Martin began experimenting with an alternative style of cello music he had been channeling all along and formed a duo called “Parallax” with pianist Brendan Littlefield. The duo created 2 full length albums. The 1st was an instrumental LP titled “Parallax : Playing at Cultured ” recorded and engineered by Paul Smith in 2005. The 2nd was a self- titled LP recorded and engineered by Eric Anderson the duo released in 2007 after Martin returned from Evreux, France where he was an exchange student and played cello in a ska band. In 2008 Martin attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR and received the cello scholarship to play with the symphony orchestra.
In the summer of 2010 Martin was taken to a local Masquerade party in Portland, OR where he met Cherita Meadows performing around a fire and the 2 were instantly united with song. Shortly after their meeting Martin and Cherita were inspired to record an album together and began travelling to Los Angeles, CA by early 2011 to record Love, Life, Laugh with Grammy award winner Rami Jaffee of the Wallflowers, and more recently the Foo Fighters. In 2012 a French movie titled “Loin du Paradis’” was released featuring a cello instrumental track titled “Catharsis” written by Martin Watkinson. In 2013 Martin shared the stage with Bryce Avery of The Rocket Summer and most recently recorded with Grammy award winner Macy Gray for her up-coming album release in 2014. Currently Martin and Cherita are Street Performing all over NW America and creating their 8th album.
