Composer Biography

Numerous ensembles have performed MacDonald’s music around the world, including Alarm Will Sound, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bergamot Quartet, JACK Quartet, New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, C4 choir, So Percussion, To Hit Duo, Young Voices of Colorado, Quintet Mont Royal, Classical Jam, Composers Concordance Ensemble, guitarists Mak Grgic and Eliot Fisk, tabla soloist Shawn Mativetsky, accordionist Bill Schimmel, french hornist John Clark, and frame drummer Glen Velez. He has received grants and awards from ASCAP, Meet the Composer, American Music Center, American Institute of Indian Studies, as well as fellowships from Yaddo, Avaloch, Marble House, and Ragdale. MacDonald has composed music for the Silken Dance Company and for filmmaker Susan Skoog. He has also created one of the single largest bodies of graphic scores of any living composer, with over 50 works and counting, including stand-alone scores and as part of his newest large-scale interdisciplinary work Sonic Peaks. His graphic scores have been performed by numerous ensembles around the world and exhibited in art galleries in Ontario, Vermont, and New Jersey.