Home » Member Page

Payton MacDonald

composer, marimbist, percussionist, improviser

About Me

As a composer numerous ensembles have performed Payton's music around the world, including Alarm Will Sound, Medeski, Martin, and Wood, Los Angeles Philharmonic, JACK Quartet, New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, So Percussion, To Hit Duo, Young Voices of Colorado, Quintet Mont Royal, Classical Jam, guitarists Mak Grgic and Eliot Fisk, Composers Concordance Ensemble, tabla soloist Shawn Mativetsky, accordionist Bill Schimmel, french hornist John Clark, and many others. He has received grants and awards from ASCAP, Meet the Composer, American Music Center, American Institute of Indian Studies, as well as fellowships from Yaddo and Ragdale.

As an improviser MacDonald has recorded and performed with Elliott Sharp, Billy Martin, Steven Crammer, Kevin Norton, Aakash Mittal, Peter Evans, Tim Feeney, Todd Sickafoose, Theo Metz, and many others. He has revolutionized improvising on the marimba, by creating new music languages, interfaces with technology, and various innovative mallets and preparations to the instrument.

As a percussionist he was a founding member of Alarm Will Sound, a new-music chamber orchestra. Alarm Will Sound is currently regarded as one of the foremost new music ensembles in the country and MacDonald made five recordings with them, on the Nonesuch and Cantaloupe labels, and toured the U.S., Europe, and Russia. He was with the group from their beginning in 2001 to 2014, at which point he left to pursue other projects. MacDonald currently performs with the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble and with that group has appeared on a PASIC Showcase concert as well as events in New York City and New Jersey. As a solo marimbist, MacDonald has commissioned many works from other composers, including Charles Wuorinen, Robert Morris, Caleb Burhans, Don Freund, Peter Jarvis, Elliott Sharp, David Saperstein, Michael Udow, and Stuart Saunders Smith. To date MacDonald has released over 20 solo marimba recordings, and he is currently releasing one full-length recording every week for a year, producing the largest body of recorded marimba music ever.

My Jazz Story

I was first exposed to jazz when I was 10 years old and discovered my Dad's jazz record collection, including an amazing recording of different master drummers taking solos (Blakey, Roach, et al).