Reviews Archive

Music for Piano and String Orchestra

Kalistos Chamber Orchestra,
April 24, 2005, Edward M. Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA, USA

David Cleary, New Music Connoisseur, Spring/Summer 2005

John McDonald accurately describes his Music for Piano and String Orchestra (1995) as "not quite a piano concerto, but not really chamber or orchestral music." The keyboard part is showy but does not dominate the piece, while the ensemble backing shows elements of writing for both small and large forces. ...its four movements flow uninterruptedly into each other, outlining unusual architecture along the way. It says much about McDonald's talent that he builds a fully satisfying entity from what might in lesser hands come off as messy or unfocused - a highly effective and unique effort. ...Pianist Winston Choi played McDonald's piece with a powerful yet fetching tone and pinpoint technique.

Transcriptions

Kenneth Radnofsky, Faculty and Friends Perform Music of Our Time,
February 22, 2005, Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, Boston, MA, USA

David Cleary, New Music Connoisseur, 2005

John McDonald's Transcriptions, Op. 397 (2004) for string quartet and alto sax, is unlike anything else your reviewer has ever heard by this tonemeister. Shot through with obsessively circular string ostinati, twisted sax cantilena lines, and fractiously granitic formal outlines, this is stark, nihilist music that truly disturbs. McDonald risks all here on an entity which some may think a mistake, while others (this critic included) consider it an evocative, remarkable work.

Meditation Before a Sonata, Dew Cloth, Dream Drapery (Piano Album 2003)

Andrew Rangell, FleetBoston Celebrity Series Marquee,
April 3, 2004, Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, Boston, MA, USA

Lloyd Schwartz, "Concerted Efforts", Boston Phoenix, March 12-18, 2004 (preview)

...his [Pianist Andrew Rangell's] concerts are true exploratory ventures, with which all the pieces, in surprising but illuminating order, bring you to a place to you've never been. ... The first half .... wound up with a new piece by John McDonald, a visionary prelude to Ives' overwhelming Concord Sonata,...

Common Injustices

John McDonald, Extension Works Piano Recital, "Common Injustices",
September 22, 2001, First and Second Church, Boston, MA, USA

Richard Dyer, "Music's Link to Life Celebrated", Boston Globe, September 23, 2001

The program featured 25 pieces, 18 of them composed this year by McDonald, his colleagues and young student composers ... was intended to focus on the "common injustices', the violations, intrusions and annoyances of modern life. .... As a whole, the program made a statement about McDonald's value to the community; one can hardly imagine anyone else undertaking such a program, or playing it with such modest and unobtrusive but total musical and pianistic mastery. Everything on this program was accessible because McDonald's conviction and artistry made it feel that way. .... Best of all, it wasn't a program about McDonald at all. Instead it was a reminder that there is nothing in our lives that music cannot address, a demonstration of how music can help us understand our lives.

Copyright © 2005 John D. McDonald. All rights reserved