Matthew McDonald

Matthew McDonald was born in Canberra, Australia. In 1996 he began his studies with Max McBride at the Canberra School of Music, later continuing with Kees Boersma in Sydney, completing his bachelor’s degree in 2000. From 2000 to 2001 he was a scholar of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Orchestra Academy, and was then engaged as deputy principal bass of the Danish National Orchestra. Studies followed at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin, with Esko Laine. Engagements followed as principal bass with the Ensemble Modern and with Berlin’s Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, before he came to the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2009. Chamber music is one of Matthew’s passions. He has performed with Imogen Cooper, Radovan Vlatkovic, Mark Padmore and the Kuss Quartet, and played the Rossini Duo at the Wigmore Hall with cellist Phillip Higham in 2010. Matthew has given masterclasses at Yale University, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and at the Tongyeong Music Festival in South Korea. He has tutored the bass sections of the European Union Youth Orchestra, The Britten Pears Orchestra and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. He is a professor at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, teacher at the Karajan Academy and visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music London.

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