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10 My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. 11 For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; 12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; 13 The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPc-VbKrxQ Hello everyone! Here I am again with a new chamber piece. This is the last part of a 5 movements work called "Cancoes Brasileiras" for Saxophone Quartet. I composed this piece after a trip I had to the beautiful Brazil and it's a sort of tribute to Villa-Lobos and Tom Jobim. Each movement has a really simple structure, hence the term "cancoes" (songs). This one in particular is a deconstruction of "Garota de Ipanema". I hope you enjoy it!

Hi again! This is another one of my dances that I recently found in my old archives and managed to finish (albeit a bit awkwardly - I think - could you let me know what you think of the ending?) It's a Bourrée in F minor for String Orchestra. Usually Bourrée's are supposed to have two eighth note pick-ups (as opposed to Gavottes which have four eighth note pick-ups) but I thought this still qualified as a Bourrée because of it's character. So let me know what you think! I composed this many years ago but am still open to constructive feedback in whatever form you wish to give it!

Recording stuff from when I was younger, and still obsessed with Beethoven! So heavily influenced by Ludwig. 2nd Movement to follow soon! Hope you enjoy. https://youtu.be/uKxwqPNcmFw

Beautiful work, nice counterpoint. It feels like a dance for me. My personal handicap with this style (composed today) is that I have the feeling of something predictable. But that's me....

nice piece. u are good at giving separate identities to instruments, there are nice counterpoint textures(i see this in ur other pieces, did u take counterpoint lessons? ) fa minor seems depressed to me mostly, I don't know if it's suitable for dance, but musically beautiful. it doesn't feel like ending to me because you move the last notes one octave up, but this your choice , just my opinion. thanks for sharing

Are you able to upload a pdf of the score? I can kind of guess what most of the instruments are but its really hard to read at the size in the video. I'm guessing the instruments above the strings that have the sixteenth not figures at the beginning are various mallet instruments? I like alot of the ideas you have here, I think they are just in an unrefined form. For example, I think the opening passage would be very hard to balance, with about seven different instruments on the sixteenth notes and the melody in just one flute. Since all the mallets are marked ppp, maybe reduce it to just one and leave the winds out of the sixteenth notes? Just an idea. I like some of the melodies that use more exotic scales starting around 1:34 as well. I don't think you should necessarily shy away from larger ensembles, but maybe limit the scope a little bit? Since it sounds like you're pretty new at this, maybe just try a some shorter, well-defined forms (binary, ternary) with fewer layers until you get more comfortable, then expand as you get more experience. Focus on just having a melody, bassline, and some chords, then gradually expand into more complicated textures. Also, think about the instruments you are using and how they will fit into these roles. Instruments like basses, cellos, bassoons, tuba will generally be baseline; violins, upper strings, trumpets will generally be melody; horns, and trombones will generally be chords; etc... Keep these roles in mind as you write... and of course different instruments may have more than one role from time to time. Thanks for sharing.

Listen to Piano Concerto No.2 3rd Movt (Final edit) by Mark McDonald on #SoundCloud https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/rjHBs Hi all, This is the final edit of the 3rd Movt of my 2nd piano Concerto. I've extended the cadenza and ironed out the wrinkles along the way. For some reason I couldn't stop twiddling with it until I got it to this point, but now that I have, I'm happy to think of it as finished and leave it without further twiddles! I've now started working the material I have for the 1st and 2nd movements so hopefully I might have a completed work in another couple of years 😂. Anyway, I hope you like it and if you did hear the first version, I'd be interested to know what you think of the differences. This particular movement started life a few years ago as a piano improvisation and gradually got molded into what it is now, as did most of the material for the other movements, let's see where they end up! Hi all, I've not posted anything for over a year, been busy with other things, but I have also been working on my second piano concerto. I have the bones of the 1st and 2nd movements, but there is still a lot of work to do on those. I do however, have the 3rd movement finished (barring a few minor edits that might arise over the next few weeks), and so I thought I would like to share this with you all. Thanks for listening. It's a bit more modern than my first piano concerto, I wouldn´t say contemporary exactly, and like all of my work, it is a tonal, classical piece. I hope you like it and as always, any and all comments are welcome and replied to. If anyone would like to see the score, it's mess lol but available if you want. Kind regards Mark https://soundcloud.com/user-729021187/piano-concerto-no2-3rd-movt

A very lively piece! It seemed like you could have milked the E section for all it's worth to extend the length of the piece and give it a bit more development. You rarely build longer melodies in this - it is mostly motivic - a feature that I enjoy about as it gives it a sort of brevity and conciseness - but it is hard to build a longer piece out of these kinds of short motifs. When you do establish a longer melody it is quickly interrupted by the motifs instead of letting it develop into a longer phrase structure - maybe you intended to do that kind of juxtaposition (it is a cool idea) but at E especially it seemed like you could have taken the opportunity to develop the piece further. Thanks for the great music!