Donald McInnes
Biography
Violist Donald McInnes, member of the strings faculty at the USC Thornton School of Music (where he holds the former position of his teacher, William Primose) and a resident member of the Camerata Pacifica Chamber Music Ensemble, is renowned as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and teacher.
He has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Orchestre Nationale de France, Pittsburgh Symphony, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, CBC Radio Orchestra, and Toronto Symphony, among many others. His career includes close associations with such artists as Leonard Bernstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Janos Starker, Martin Katz, Menahem Pressler, Yo-Yo Ma, and Brooks Smith.
McInnes is an active recording artist who can be heard on the Columbia, RCA, Deutsche Grammophon, and Angel (EMI) labels. He has premiered many works for viola including those commissioned for him by such composers as William Schuman, Vincent Persichetti, Paul Tufts, and Robert Suderburg. He regularly appears at leading summer music festivals in the United States and abroad such as Banff, Marlboro, Gstaad, Ambler, International String Workshop, and the Music Academy of the West. His students have been first prizewinners at the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, the Friday Morning Musical Club National Competition at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the CBC National Competition in Vancouver, BC.
