Ensembles & Projects
I lead multiple ensembles not for variety’s sake, but because different musical questions require different architectures.
Each project is shaped by instrumentation, repertoire, social context, and listening conditions. Some ensembles remain active and evolving. Others represent completed chapters that continue to inform my current work. A few resurface occasionally, when the music—and the moment—call for it.
Taken together, these projects form an ecosystem rather than a hierarchy.
Black Square Ensemble
Current Project
Named for Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square, this contemporary chamber ensemble sets socially conscious poetry through a compositional language grounded in clarity, restraint, and formal intention. The work engages urgent civic themes while drawing from jazz, contemporary classical practice, and global rhythmic traditions.
This is my primary artistic focus. A debut recording is currently in post-production, with performances and touring planned following its release.
Yankee Gumbo
Archival Project
Yankee Gumbo was a ten-piece “little big band” designed to explore the space between chamber precision and orchestral weight. Featuring four brass, three saxophones, and rhythm section, the ensemble recorded the award-winning album Open Borders and maintained an active performance life from 2009–2013.
While I am not currently writing or performing for this ensemble, it represents an important chapter in my compositional and bandleading development.
The Earl MacDonald 6
Archival Project (occasionally revisited)
This sextet worked within the hard bop lineage while quietly pushing against its edges. Trumpet, alto saxophone, and trombone formed a flexible frontline for contrapuntal writing and elastic improvisation.
Though no longer an active working band, music from this project is occasionally revisited in performance.
Creative Opportunity Workshop (C.O.W.)
Archival Project
C.O.W. functioned as a laboratory for experimentation, featuring cello, saxophone, piano, and percussion. The ensemble allowed me to explore hybrid forms where composition and improvisation existed in constant negotiation, and it marked my first sustained use of cello and percussion outside traditional rhythm section roles.
This project proved foundational to my later work, including the Black Square Ensemble. While currently inactive, its influence remains central to my musical thinking.
Salles / MacDonald Quartet
Occasional Project
This quartet serves as an outlet for modern, post-bop improvisation rooted in the lineage of Coltrane, Shorter, and post-Coltrane composers. The music emphasizes intensity, long-form development, and collective risk-taking.
Performances are infrequent, but the collaboration remains open and may expand to future concerts or recordings.
Solo Piano Concerts
Occasional Project
Solo piano is the most exposed context in which I work. I perform in this format selectively, in dedicated listening environments where space, pacing, and silence are integral to the experience.
This remains an area of growing interest and one I intend to pursue more actively.
MacDonald–Maher Duo
Archival Project
This guitar–piano duo focused on straight-ahead repertoire drawn from the American Songbook and jazz standards, emphasizing clarity, swing, and conversational interplay.
The project is no longer active.
Jazz Lauds
Archival Project
Jazz Lauds reimagined hymns and worship music through a jazz lens, typically within liturgical settings. While no longer aligned with my current artistic or personal trajectory, the project represents an important period of inquiry that directly informed later recordings such as Consecrated.
Jazz for Joy Quintet
Seasonal / Contextual Project
This ensemble explores holiday repertoire through a jazz vocabulary. While primarily functional and seasonal in nature, it allows for thoughtful arranging and high-level performance in a recurring context.