Margaret McDonald: Mezzo Soprano
Margaret McDonald, mezzo-soprano, is a renowned international singer and voice-coach. She sings regularly in major venues and cathedrals in the U.K. 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.
She has taught at the RSAMD and RNCM, where she indeed studied. She is vocal coach for the Hallé Choir, the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, and has taken workshops for Bury, Ramsbottom, Saddleworth and Huddersfield Choral Societies. She was delighted to be involved in the Bury Hospice Schools Choir Competition. She has also been the vocal coach for the production of Amadeus at The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, Mama Mia at the Palace Theatre in Manchester and most recently at the Opera House in Manchester for the new musical Ghost.
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! She has sung Elgar’s with the Hallé choir, the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus and recorded a CD with the Fairey Band. She sang a specially commissioned piece by Phillip Lawrence in Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, as part of the City of Culture Celebrations, performed the World Premiere of Equiano’s Lament by Borthwick and performed with the Manchester Camerata. In 2008 she 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!
Recent concerts have included Elgar’s Sea Pictures, 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, Bach’s Mass in B Minor in Sheffield Cathedral, St, Matthew Passion in Taunton, Handel’s Israel in Egypt, as well as open air “Last Night of the Proms” style concerts, recitals of Spanish song with guitar and a number of recitals with pianist Jan Swynnoe.
Future performances include Elgar’s The Music Makers, Dream of Gerontius, Rutter’s Feel The Spirit , a specially commissioned piece by Phillip Lawrence for Salford Choral Society, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony in Chester Cathedral plus opera galas and recital work.
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