He puts in as much practice time as he can every day and said that preparing for last month's recital was challenging. I'd play everything at sight. But now I'm beginning to play more seriously. Macdonald combines a serious interest in music performance with a deep intellectual curiosity about music scholarship. He receives rewards from both pursuits.
Music is something to be done as much as to be thought about and studied.
As a musicologist, Macdonald's contributions to the field are prolific. He has written three books and has been published extensively in academic journals, both in the United States and in Europe. From engineering to music As a teen-ager living in England, Macdonald became obsessed with the work of Berlioz. It was a fanatical phase that many people go through at that age. Between traveling long distances to hear concerts that had Berlioz on the program, the young Macdonald spent his days playing the piano and learning an eclectic repertoire of classical, jazz and show tunes.