Alex MacDonald.

Viola.

Over a decade ago Alex was enchanted away from engineering and science by his composerly friends writing music for him. Now as an alumna of ANAM and graduate of the University of Auckland, Alex is a freelance musician and barista. He has a long record of engaging with emerging composers, through several solo viola commissions and new music events in New Zealand, Australia, and Switzerland. In 2013 he founded the Rothko Quartet and won the ROSL/Pettman scholarship which saw them tour Europe. Later he founded the Villani Piano Quartet and left to study in Naarm. He has performed with orchestras across New Zealand and Naarm, toured with live live cinema around the world, appeared as several characters in the revolutionary group Blackbird Ensemble, and has been a performer for the Composers' Association of New Zealand's annual workshop for ten years. 

Alex plays a Thomas Warren viola commissioned in 1974 by his mentor Peter Barber.