For a recent Curriculum Vitae see here

Short Biography

John McDonald

Recently described as “the New England master of the short piece,” John McDonald is a composer who tries to play the piano and a pianist who tries to compose. He is the current Director of Graduate Music Studies and Professor of Music at Tufts University, where he teaches composition, theory, and performance. His output concentrates on vocal, chamber, and solo instrumental works, and includes interdisciplinary experiments. Before coming to Tufts in 1990, he taught at Boston University, Longy School of Music, M.I.T., and the Rivers Conservatory. He  has served as Chair of the Music Department at Tufts University, as an Artistic Ambassador to Asia, and is on the advisory board of Worldwide Concurrent Premieres, Inc., and other cultural and academic organizations. He was the Music Teachers National Association Composer of the Year in 2007, and served as the Valentine Visiting Professor of Music at Amherst College in 2016-2017.

Some of his scores are available at the American Composers Alliance.

Recent Commissions; Performance Activities

• • 2020 Shizuka Viola Duo: Thinking Double Concerto, But Not Up To It, for two violas and piano (for Fall 2020 premiere)
  • 2020 Edith Auner and Thomas Stumpf/Tufts University: Diabellis Dividing, for two pianos (for March 29, 2020 premiere)
  • 2019 Music Connects Us/Global Concert Exchange: Clime Climb, for traverso/flute soloist and community ensemble
  • 2019 Hartt School/University of Hartford: David Dovetails Domenico, for piano
  • 2019 Ensemble/Parallax; Tufts University: Nightingale SOS, for piccolo, viola, cello, and wooden bowls (percussion) [Berio Folksongs Response Project]
  • 2019 Su Lian Tan/Yong Siew Toh Conservatory (Singapore): Inter-Dependencies for two flutes and piano (Boston and Singapore Premieres, Fall 2020/Winter 2021)
  • 2018 Tufts Youth Philharmonic (TYP): new work for youth orchestra (Some Recommended Routines)
  • 2018 Music From Salem/Lila Brown: First Trio for Three Violas
  • 2018 Griffis/Jensen Duo: Trio (flute, viola, bassoon)
  • 2017 Colin Gee, movement actor: Julian’s Fasti (evening-long work based on Ovid; for movement actor and piano)
  • 2017 Rivers Conservatory: Second Sonata for Solo Violin;
  • 2016 Cello e Basso: Mediated, Monitored, for cello, contrabass, and piano;
  • 2015 Master Singers of Lexington: Uprights, for chorus and contrabass;
  • 2015 Cellist Rhonda Rider, Petrified Forest National Park Artist Residency: Two Passages, One Place; Returns, for solo cello;
  • 2014 Pianists Randall Hodgkinson and Lois Shapiro and Performance Artist Colin Gee: Kindling With Subsongs, for two pianos and movement performance; “Prequel” to Stravinsky Firebird arrangement for multiple pianos;
  • 2014/2013 Zodiac Trio: Trio About Smoking; Hillside Humoresque (Scorpio), for clarinet, violin, and piano; commissioned respectively for 2015-2016 USA Tour and November 2013 China Tour;

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  McDonald has composed upwards of 3000 solo piano miniatures gathered in annual collections (Piano Albums 1984-2017). He has performed many of these works, as have more than forty other pianists.

  He is the pianist of The Mockingbird Trio (with Elizabeth Anker, contralto and Scott Woolweaver, viola) and The Turina Trio (with Marco Granados, flute and Ken Radnofsky, saxophone), and has collaborated throughout his composing and performing life with singers, instrumentalists, and other composers, notably soprano Karol Bennett, Florestan Recital Project, and composers T.J. Anderson, Jr., Mark DeVoto, and Tod Machover. He has recorded widely (on the Albany, BMOP Sound, Bridge, Centaur, Hungarton, and New World labels, to name a few) as both composer and pianist.

  Recent Recordings 

  • 2020 At All Device: John McDonald Piano Music Retrospective 1 (2002-2017). David Holzman, piano. Winter 2020 release on Bridge Records (Bridge 9528).
  • 2017 Reflections on Time and Mortality. Thomas Stumpf, piano. Featuring Works by Schubert, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Bartok, Rokhmaninov, Wyner, McDonald, Stumpf, Biggs. February 2017 Release on Albany Records (Troy 1959/60).
  • 2016 Dreamtime: Zodiac Trio “Across the Universe.” Works by Danielpour, List, Mackey, and Twelve Short Pieces by Twelve Composers (including McDonald Hillside Humoresque [Scorpio]). January 2016 Release on Blue Griffin Recordings (BGR 391).
  • 2015 Cadenza: Modern American Music for Clarinet/Basset Horn and Piano. Ray Jackendoff, clarinet and basset horn; John McDonald, piano. Works by Berger, Carter, Copland, McDonald, and Wyner. November 2015 Release on Albany Records (Troy 1598).
  • 2014 Keypunch: Music for Piano, Four Hands by Claman, McDonald, Vigil. July 2014 Release on Albany Records (Troy 1498).
  • 2013 Airy: Retrospective of Violin and Piano Music by John McDonald. Joanna Kurkowicz, violin soloist; John McDonald, piano. September 2013 Release on Bridge Records (Bridge 9402).
  • 2013 Grand Theft and Other Felonies: Flute Music (with piano, selected other accompaniments) by McDonald, Su Lian Tan, others. Spring 2013 Release on Arsis Records (Arsis CD 178).

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  Recent Film Projects

  Music composed and performed for films by Judith Wechsler:

  • 2018 Isaiah Berlin—Philosopher of Freedom;
  • 2017 Svetlana Boym: Exile and Imagination;
  • 2016 Metamorphosis and Memory (Film on Aby Warburg);
  • 2014 The Passages of Walter Benjamin;

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  Articles and  Book

  • In the journal Audionarratology (Narratalogia): Co-Author with Jarmila Mildorf (University of Paderborn, Germany), Pictures into Sound: Aural World-Making in Art Gallery Audio Guides (April 2015; features McDonald concert work Courbet’s Impromptu Farewells)
  • In NANO Today: Materials by Design—Merging Proteins and Music (November 2012 online article; interdisciplinary collaboration with scientists, mathematicians, choreographer; Tufts, Boston University, Tufts; McDonald contribution: “Four Spinning Melodies” for solo flute, based on peptide sequence diagrams; second author)
  • Forthcoming 2018-2019 Borik Press: Stirring Up the Music: The Life, Works, and Influence of Composer T(homas) J(efferson) Anderson

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