Dr Anna McDonald

Anna McDonald is deeply involved in the process of collaboration between cultures in her roles as a composer, researcher and player in bridging these cultures. She performs and composes with the internationally renowned Jazmourian Ensemble. Her research and work with others explores identity in the context of music-making to create a more inclusive cultural landscape.

Anna’s recently awarded PhD catalysed her experience in historical performance practices, intercultural psychology and a lived-experience narrative methodology to explore her transition from baroque violinist to Iranian kamancheh player.

She completed her Bachelor of Music at the Canberra (now ANU School of Music) as a violinist, gaining a high distinction and receiving the Friends’ Prize for outstanding graduate. Under two consecutive full Australia Council scholarships, she continued her studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, doing the Advanced Solo Studies course with David Takeno. Her study at the Guildhall was followed by baroque violin lessons with Elizabeth Wilcock, Catherine Mackintosh and Ingrid Seifert.

Her successful career based in London included being concertmaster for many years of the Gabrieli Consort and Players, the Hanover Band and the Avison Ensemble. With the first two groups she toured widely in Europe and the Americas, as soloist, leader and director. She also performed and recorded with the Purcell Quartet, the English Concert, English Baroque Soloists, London Baroque, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Florilegium.

Anna’s discography includes leading the Gabrieli Consort and Players, conducted by Paul McCreesh, for several recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, including Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Handel’s Messiah and Theodora, and Handel arias with Rolando Villazon. Additionally, she played 17th century chamber works in their recordings: Music For San Rocco and Easter Mass.

She also recorded chamber works for oboe and Terzetto for Harmonia Mundi (with Paul Goodwin). She played a considerable role in the Hanover Band’s recording project of the complete JC Bach orchestral repertoire for CPO, playing solo violin for several Concerti with combined instruments.

After her return to Australia in 1999, Anna was a founding member of Pinchgut Opera and was its concertmaster for many years. She was also the concertmaster of the ABC’s recording orchestras Sinfonia Australis and Orchestra of the Antipodes for 10 years, leading all (except no 6) and directing some of its Bach Brandenburg Concerti for ABC Classic’s recording of these works.

She also founded the Sirius Ensemble with Erin Helyard, giving a number of performances and recording Veracini violin sonatas for Artworks.

Anna has collaborated with Lars-Ulrik Mortensen, Geoffrey Lancaster, Genevieve Lacey and many other musicians in festivals such as the Canberra International Chamber Music Festival, Barossa Valley Festival, Castlemaine Festival, and New England Bach Festival.

In recent years, she undertook a comprehensive study of Middle Eastern modes, extending her interest in baroque ornamentation and improvisation to embrace this complex and highly effective area, and finding that modal music provided a long-sought-after basis for composition.

Through her work with a number of intercultural ensembles, Anna took up the kamancheh (Iranian spike fiddle) and played for a number of Armenian cultural events with this instrument, including the Genocide Anniversary concert in Sydney Town Hall in 2015, performing for 1,500 people. Anna was concertmaster of the Iranian-Australian ‘Madakto Orchestra’ in July 2017 for a major Australia tour of the Kurdish-Iranian singer Shahram Nazeri, including performing for 2,000 people in the Lyric Theatre. This was followed by an Australian tour with Iranian singer Alireza Ghorbani in 2018 in a chamber ensemble featuring western and Iranian instruments.

She undertook extensive research in playing the Iranian kamancheh during three years in Iran and Armenia, referencing the cultural bases of Mithraism, Zoroastrianism and Islam. During this period she formed the Jazmourian Ensemble with Iranian composer and heritage expert Malek Mohammadi Nejad. Performing their own compositions internationally and teaching intercultural creativity, they are now Ensemble-in-Residence at the ANU School of Music.