ANDREW PAUL MACDONALD

Composer and Classical/Jazz Guitarist

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Renowned classical/jazz composer and guitarist Andrew Paul MacDonald is known for his compositions, which are performed in Canada and internationally.

 

Coming soon on November 8 and 11, 2025, at Pacific Opera Victoria, is his world premiere: "Remembering Mary's Wedding," Op. 78c, for narrator, soprano, tenor, and piano, libretto by Stephen Massicotte. In Italy on May 23, 2026, his latest composition "Love Unfolding," Op. 101, for orchestra will be performed; World Premiere by the Orchestra Filarmonica Campana, conducted by Giulio Marazia, Reggia di Caserta, Caserta.

 

Recently, on October 2, 2026, MacDonald's Double Concerto No. 2: The Triumph of Saraswati, Op. 93/ Drummondville Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Julien Proulx, as well as, on April 11, his world premiere of the Second Concerto for Solo Violin and String Orchestra, given by soloist Christina Bouey and the Sinfonia Toronto, conducted by Giulio Marazia.

 

Appointed to the Order of Canada in 2022 for his lifetime achievements in composition and performance, the works of Andrew Paul MacDonald have won many prestigious prizes, including the 1995 JUNO Award for “Best Classical Composition” for his Violin Concerto. His many compositions have been performed across the country by such notable ensembles as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, l'Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Esprit Orchestra, l'Orchestre symphonique de Québec, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, the Regina Symphony Orchestra, the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, the Evergreen Club and the I Musici de Montréal. He has had works commissioned by outstanding orchestras, chamber ensembles, solo performers, music competitions, the Canadian Opera Company and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. His works are frequently broadcast on CBC and Société Radio-Canada, and have been performed in Australia, China, England, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, the United States, Ukraine and Canada. Thirty-five of his compositions have been recorded on twenty compact discs to date, and two for violin and piano on the ATMA and Centrediscs labels were both nominated for the 2005 East Coast Music Award. Of these, Jasper Wood's recording of MacDonald's works won that award, as well as the 2005 Canadian Independent Music Award. MacDonald’s second opera, Mary’s Wedding, premiered by Pacific Opera Victoria in 2011 and broadcast on CBC’s Saturday Afternoon At The Opera, was recently taken on tour in British Columbia as part of the WWI centenary.

 

MacDonald is also a concert guitarist and in his formative years completed intensive guitar studies with Alexandre Lagoya, Michael Lorimer, Ray Sealey and Manuel Lopez- Ramos. He has premiered a number of works especially written for him, including the concerto Nocturno by Canadian composer Glenn Buhr, and in 1979 was a finalist in the CBC National Performers' Competition. In 1980 he presented the Canadian premiere of Richard Rodney Bennett's Guitar Concerto and in 1982 made his first Carnegie Hall appearance at the ISCM festival in New York. He has performed many of his own compositions, including solos, chamber works and song cycles and has been recorded and broadcast on both the CBC and Société-Radio Canada. Besides the concertos mentioned above, he has also been the soloist in a number of other concertos, including those by Villa-Lobos and Rodrigo, and was the featured soloist in the Orchestre symphonique de Sherbrooke premiere of Electric Pleasures, his concerto for electric guitar and orchestra. His most recent album, Music of the City and the Stars, features MacDonald as soloist with the Quatuor Saguenay playing his compositions, Lyra and Restless City. MacDonald also has a passion for writing jazz and blues compositions which he has recorded with the MacDonald-Breton-Sullivan Trio.

 

Past Vice-President and Council member of the Canadian League of Composers, Associate Member of the Canadian Music Centre, and a founding Artistic Director of Ensemble Musica Nova, MacDonald is a recently retired professor of composition at Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke, Québec.

 

Biographical articles on MacDonald are to be found in:


The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2ed., 2001);


the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com);

and the Canadian Who's Who.


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Visit the website at: www.andrewpaulmacdonald.com