Manuel Papale was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and began his studies in Miami, Florida with Jason Calloway, cellist of the Amernet Quartet and Professor of Cello at Florida International University. In 2016, Manuel was awarded a full-tuition scholarship to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Cello Performance at Texas Christian University under the tutelage of Dr. Jesús Castro-Balbi and Christine Lamprea, and graduated Magna Cum Laude. In 2020, he went on to pursue a Master’s degree in Cello Performance at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in the studio of Emilio Colón, where he was awarded the “Eva Heinitz Cello Scholarship Award.” Manuel has recently graduated from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music studying with Ilya Finkelshteyn as an Artist Diploma student and Diversity Fellow with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

In September, Manuel will join the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in New Orleans as Assistant Principal of the cello section. In Texas, Manuel was a founding member of the Uproar and Cantilena string quartets dedicated to promoting the music of female and Latin American composers, respectively. In Indiana, he was a founding member of the award-winning Canone String Quartet which was named the Jacobs School's student String-Quartet-in-Residence and recipient of the Kuttner Quartet Fellowship. Manuel has performed chamber music with members of the Renaissance, Cleveland, Borromeo, and Miró string quartets, as well as orchestra concerts with the Grant Park and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras.

Manuel has performed in masterclasses for cellists Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Inbal Segev, Bion Tsang, Anne-Martindale Williams, Philippe Muller, Yehuda Hanani, Astrid Schween, Yeesun Kim, and Julian Schwarz. An avid orchestral musician, Manuel has also trained with leading members of the Cincinnati, Grant Park, St. Louis, Fort Worth, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Milwaukee, and Buenos Aires Symphony Orchestras.

Solo appearances include the CPE Bach Cello Concerto in A minor with the TCU Collegium Musicum, Antonín Dvořák’s Silent Woods with the Greater North Texas Youth Orchestra, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis as part of the 2025 String Fellow Quartet with the Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago.

Aside from classical performance, Manuel is passionate about teaching, composing, arranging, and improvising in a variety of musical genres.