Brian McDonagh

Brian McDonagh began his musical training at the age of fifteen.  Two years later he made his orchestral debut with the Toronto Symphony performing the Schumann Piano Concerto.  He has studied in Toronto, New York and Vienna working with Marietta Orlov, Garrick Ohlsson and Andreas Schiff.  He received his Bachelors and Masters degrees in piano performance from the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto.  He studied composition with Alexander Rapaport in Toronto and pursued post graduate studies in composition with Samuel Adler at the Juilliard School in New York City.

Mr. McDonagh has performed throughout Canada, Europe and the United States. He was a semi-finalist in both the Busoni International Piano Competition and the Beethoven International Competition held in Vienna. In 1997 he released his first solo recording titled ‘Seminal‘ featuring works of Bach, Haydn, Brahms, Chopin and Bartok.  In 1998 he performed a sixteen concert solo tour of South America on behalf of OXFAM International in support of women’s suffrage on that continent

His compositions have been performed and recorded by members of the Toronto Symphony, the AMICI ensemble, the Chamber Society of Lincoln Center and several Solo performers both from North America and Europe and have been broadcast on the CBC in Canada and in Germany on the GRD.  Works have been featured in three European Summer Festivals and he has been a top prize winner in three International Composition Competitions.

Since 1992 Mr. McDonagh has maintained an active teaching schedule and has specialized in both the intermediate and advanced repertoire.  Since 1996 he has been a member of the Piano Department at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto.  In addition to teaching piano, he has lectured in the areas of Piano Literature and Advanced Pedagogy for the last decade.

In 2008 he founded PLANGERE – Canada’s new Music Publishing House specializing in historically accurate authoritative music editions of piano, voice and chamber music from the 14th Century to our present day.
"I consider him an outstanding young composer who has already established himself as a leading creator of his generation."
Samuel Adler – The Juilliard School
Author – The Study of Orchestration