An American pianist. He has performed throughout the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia as a solo recitalist and, for many years, as recital partner to Isaac Stern and other distinguished instrumentalists. He has appeared with the San Francisco, Baltimore and Curtis symphony orchestras, as well as the Orquestra Sinfonica Nacional de Costa Rica and L’Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento in Italy. As a chamber musician, he has performed with the Juilliard, American, Takacs, Muir, Brentano, St Lawrence, Vermeer, Borromeo, Shanghai and Orion string quartets, and has given concerts for the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, Chicago Chamber Musicians and NHK and BBC television worldwide. His discography includes recordings for Sony Classical, Vox, Bridge, Musical Heritage Society, ASV and CRI. McDonald is a member of the piano faculties at the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music, where he holds the Penelope P. Watkins Chair in piano studies. In addition to being artistic director of the Taos School of Music and Chamber Music Festival in New Mexico, he has participated in the Bergen, Lucerne and Salzburg festivals in Europe, the Four Seasons, Marlboro and Brevard festivals in the US, the Steans Institute at Ravinia, the Banff Center in Canada and the Music Academy of the West. McDonald is a winner of the Gold Medal at the Busoni International Competition and of the German Record Critics’ Award. In 2018 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of both the Manhattan School of Music and Lawrence University.