Curtis Macdonald
There are two artists named Curtis Macdonald:
1. Curtis Macdonald, b. 1962, Pianist and composer
The music Curtis Macdonald creates evokes emotional and passionate feelings. His soulful contemporary weaving of jazz and new age music is stylized with an effervescent and transparent wash of modern electronica that becomes the foundation for his memorable acoustic piano melodies and lyrical improvisations that are heartfelt and reflective with a dash of cool.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Curtis Macdonald played a role in turning contemporary instrumental and new age more mainstream.
When he was signed by the independent music label Eversound in 2002, his signature style of radio friendly smooth new age solidified into a sound appreciated all over the world. His sound would evolve throughout the years with the incorporation of jazz, world beat and EDM.
For his Eversound album release, Everlasting, Curtis Macdonald received Grammy consideration for Best New Age Record as well as placing in the New Age Reporter Top 100 Recordings of 2007. His song Hope and Faith was a top 10 hit on Sirius Satellite Radio’s “Spa” for a straight 20 weeks. In 2013 his recent CMMP release “When Dreams Come True” received Grammy consideration and selections achieved heavy rotation on Music Choice's Soundscapes.
Growing up in Southern California, Macdonald became a self taught musician beginning at the age of six. After graduating with a BFA in composition from California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California in 1986, he began a long career as a composer for various music libraries, allowing his talents of emulating practically every style of music to be used. In 1997 he began recording his personal branded style of music and created his own label CMMP records.
His jazz influences are Bill Evans, Vince Guaraldi, Bob James and Jeff Lorber and has a fond affection for pop and dance music. He is well versed in the history of music and the technological achievements of the industry from his first experience with a Macintosh in 1984 to the present day creating with a smartphone.
2. Curtis Macdonald, b. 1985, Saxophonist and composer
Curtis Macdonald is a saxophonist, composer and producer whose works blend composition, sound design and improvisation. He has won commissions from Aszure Barton & Artists, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Kate Weare Company, Hubbard Street Dance, Bayerisches Staatsballett (The Bavarian State Ballet), Larry Keigwin & Co. and The Juilliard School. In 2014, he was co-awarded the first Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation Prize for his collaboration with Aszure Barton on the dance Awáa. His original scores are currently featured in several modern dance and ballet companies worldwide.
Curtis has released three albums as a bandleader, Community Immunity (2011), Twice Through The Wall (2013), and most recently, Scotobiology—the study of darkness, which is inspired by the effects of artificial light on living beings. He has also authored Introducing Extended Saxophone Techniques published by Mel Bay and is faculty at The New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music. Furthermore, Curtis is a producer for Q2 Music at New York Public Radio where he received a Peabody Award in 2015 for his work on the podcast Meet The Composer.
Curtis also works closely with the great American composer, multi-instrumentalist and 2016 Pulitzer Prize winner Henry Threadgill as a member of his ensemble “Double-Up”. And this past fall, he has performed work at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA) and at The Guggenheim Museum. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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