Alex McDonald – UNITED STATES
Since his orchestral debut at age 11, pianist Alex McDonald has soloed with the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de Mexico, Louisiana Philharmonic, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and Utah Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has performed across the United States, as well as in Israel, Mexico, Canada, Japan, and South Korea; additionally, he has been a featured performer on PBS, WRR (Dallas/Fort Worth), NPR, and WQXR (New York City). Awards include second prizes at the 2007 New Orleans International Piano Competition and 2001 Gina Bachauer International Young Artist Piano Competition, and the 2008 Harvey Fellowship by the Mustard Seed Foundation. In 2013, he was a competitor in the Fourteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Mr. McDonald is currently the festival director for Basically Beethoven, a thriving summer concert series now approaching its 40th season in downtown Dallas’ Arts District. His program “Music for Animals” was hailed by Theater Jones as one of its “Concerts of the Year” in 2016. Equally passionate as a teacher, his private piano students have been admitted to Juilliard and Eastman, and have performed at Carnegie’s Weill Hall and on WRR. He has taught at Texas Woman’s University, Richland College, and The Juilliard School, where he also was a teaching fellow for both the Literature and Materials and Piano Minor departments. The Texas Music Teacher’s Association awarded him the 2017 Outstanding Achievement Award in teaching at the age of 34.
Mr. McDonald received his pre-college training under Lois Nielson, his bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory with Academic Honors and Distinction in Performance under Russell Sherman, and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Juilliard under Yoheved Kaplinsky and Julian Martin. His doctoral document, a source study on manuscripts and editions for Liszt’s Sonata in B Minor, has been cited in the most recent edition of the sonata by Alfred Publishers, edited by Nancy Bricard.