Lowell Dijkstra was born in 1952 in Exeter, Canada and at the age of 7 he and his family moved to the Netherlands.
Dijkstra studied guitar with Guido Topper at the Music Academy in Leeuwarden and received his diploma in 1979.

His composition studies date from 1981 at which time he worked with Willem Frederik Bon at the Groningen Conservatory. Following Bon's untimely death, Dijkstra  pursued his study with Tristan Keuris in Utrecht and graduated in 1990, receiving the Prize for Composition.
Almost every work has been written by commission, most of them with financial support by the Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst. (Fund for the Creating Art) Most of his output is published by Donemus-Amsterdam.