Margaret McDonald is a renowned international singer and voice-coach. She sings regularly in major venues and Cathedrals in the UK and abroad. She works with many leading conductors, encompassing an extensive repertoire of oratorio and concert work, opera, contemporary and light music. As well as singing with numerous choral societies nationwide, she has sung on the operatic stage for Glyndebourne Festival and touring Opera, ENO, Opera North, CBTO, Chelsea Opera Group, Scottish Opera and Scottish Opera Go Round. She has recorded a variety of works for Nimbus, Marco Polo and the BBC, including Maxwell Davies’ The Jacobite Rising and Sea Elegy.
Her concert work has ranged dramatically from Mahler’s Third Symphony in Huddersfield Town Hall to The Good Old Days at the City Varieties, Leeds. In recent years she has sung Rachmaninov’s Vespers with the Hallé choir, A Child of our Time with the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, recorded a CD with the Fairey Brass Band, sung a specially commissioned piece by Phillip Lawrence in Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, as part of the City of Culture Celebrations, performed the World Premier of Equiano’s Lament by Borthwick and performed with the Manchester Camerata in the Leeds International Concert Season. She even sang the Sheffield United Football Club Anthem in Bramall Lane Stadium for a documentary about the club, and before the final match of the season in front of 30,000 fans!
Concerts this year have included Elgar’s Sea Pictures and The Music Makers, Tippett’s Child of our Time, Mozart’s Mass in C, Saint-Saëns’ Requiem and Verdi’s Requiem, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle as well as open air “Last Night of the Proms” style concerts, recitals of Spanish song with guitar and a number or recitals with pianist Jan Swynnoe. Future work includes Bach’s B Minor Mass in Sheffield Cathedral, St. Mathew Passion in Taunton, Elgar’s Music Makers in Salisbury Cathedral, The Dream of Gerontius in Harrogate, Rutter’s Feel the Spirit in Doncaster, Handel’s Israel in Egypt in London. Mahler’s 2nd Symphony and a newly commissioned [piece by Philip Lawrence for Salford Choral Society and recitals nationwide.
Review
An Evening of Elgar
Royal Hall, Harrogate, 7 November 2009
A quite outstanding performance of Elgar’s ‘Sea Pictures’ by Margaret McDonald was the highlight of ‘An Evening of Elgar’ presented by Harrogate Choral Society, directed with his usual infectious energy by Andrew Padmore, and accompanied by the Amici Ensemble on Sat 7th Nov 2009 at the Royal Hall
McDonald sang Elgar’s masterpiece with a considerable range of emotions, heightened by means of most expressive use of the upper body, especially the face and hands. Her diction was excellent and her voice carried superbly over the orchestral accompaniment even in the fully-scored passages.