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Curtis Macdonald

Curtis Macdonald is a composer, sound designer, radio producer and saxophonist based in New York City.

Curtis 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, and in 2016 he received a New Music USA grant for his collaboration with Kate Weare in Marksman. In suit, Curtis’ original theatrical scores have been featured across 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, 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 and Ohio Wesleyan University's New York Arts Program. Furthermore, Curtis is a producer for WQXR/WNYC where he received a Peabody Award in 2015 for his work on the podcast Meet The Composer. Recently he co-wrote, produced, and sound designed a full-length feature with host Terrance McKnight, entitled Leonard Bernstein’s Black America that generated record-reaching audience engagement.

Moreover Curtis has exhibited work at The Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process series with the Kate Weare Company, and also with vocalist Helga Davis at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA) in response to visual artist Nick Cave’s Until. Curtis also has worked closely with the great American composer, multi-instrumentalist and Pulitzer Prize laureate Henry Threadgill as a conductor, copyist and member of his ensembles ‘Double-Up’, and ‘14 or 15 Kestra: Agg’.

Curtis frequently works in several multimedia settings, providing brand-focused original scoring, sound design and final mixing for commercial photographers, marketers, and documentarians. Recently, he directed a radio biopic feature on the great actor, singer and legendary American icon Harry Belafonte, and was the Technical Director of Open Ears Project for WNYC Studios.

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139
Album Review

Curtis Macdonald: Community Immunity

Read "Community Immunity" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


"The Jazz Community" is a phrase that shows up in more than a few album reviews, but what does it really mean? Like-minded jazz musicians certainly gravitate toward one another, but they don't live in some massive, hippie-like commune where people play John Coltrane and Charlie Parker licks ad infinitum and bow down in front of Mao-like photos of Louis Armstrong, Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins. The idea of a jazz community is more about sharing like-minded philosophies, finding acceptance ...

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106

Recording

Saxophonist/Composer Curtis Macdonald Releases New CD "Community Immunity" on Greenleaf Music.

Saxophonist/Composer Curtis Macdonald Releases New CD "Community Immunity" on Greenleaf Music.

Source: Two for the Show Media

Community Immunity, the title of saxophonist and composer Curtis Macdonald's debut album (Greenleaf Recordsת/5/11), may seem to be just a clever play on words, but to the artist, being a member of a community is vital to the creation of his art. Whether he's in his current home of New York City or Alberta, Canada, where he grew up, Macdonald always strives to keep his sense of place in mind. So too does Macdonald view the world of music as ...

148

Recording

Two New Albums: Dave Douglas and Curtis Macdonald on Greenleaf Music

Two New Albums: Dave Douglas and Curtis Macdonald on Greenleaf Music

Source: Dave Douglas / Greenleaf Music

Two new albums available now for preorder at greenleafmusic.com Dave Douglas | United Front: Brass Ecstasy at Newport Originally recorded by WBGO Jazz 88 and presented as part of NPR's live concert series, this remastered album captures the group's spectacular performance during the 2010 Carefusion Newport Jazz Festival. “There was a special feeling for us on taking the drive out to the festival grounds at Fort Adams State Park. On the day of the gig, each of us was flying ...

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