Saxophonist and composer Colin MacDonald is excited to announce the release of his debut CD recording, Circle of Wind. Collecting his chamber music for saxophone written between 1996 and 2003, this album features MacDonald as a soloist, as well as in collaboration with pianist Ken Cormier, cellist Stefan Hintersteininger, and the Saxophilia saxophone quartet. MacDonald's compositions for saxophone are his most personal works, written to expand his own performance repertoire in a postminimalist style. He acknowledges a huge debt of influence to Steve Reich, Michael Nyman, and Michael Gordon, as well as a pervasive interest in world music rhythms from Africa, India, and Indonesia. The six works on this album range emotionally from quietly introspective, to heartfelt and sentimental, to exuberantly ecstatic. Two works for unaccompanied saxophone, Pak Alit and Thaumaturgy, highlight MacDonald's virtuosity on the soprano and alto saxophones, respectively. Both pieces were created as showcases for circular breathing on the saxophone, with spiraling melodic patterns spinning on and on. The duo for soprano sax and piano, Flow Like Water, and the saxophone quartet Prana both explore canonic patterning reminiscent of Reich that surround the listener in energetic rhythmic cycles. Here Again is an unapologetically romantic duo for soprano saxophone and piano, written for two friends, while Prison of Bone is MacDonald at his most darkly introspective, a moody work for eleven saxophones, all played by the composer. Colin MacDonald is a freelance saxophonist, composer and arranger living in Vancouver, BC. He studied jazz arranging with Fred Stride, world rhythms with Glen Velez and Trichy Sankaran, and Balinese gamelan with Michael Tenzer and Dewa Ketut Alit. His works have been premiered by the Turning Point Ensemble, Continuum Contemporary Music, Ad Mare Wind Quintet, The Microscore Project, the Vertical Orchestra, Fringe Percussion, the Yarilo Duo, saxophonist Julia Nolan, and pianist Marguerite Witvoet. In 2006 he formed his own chamber orchestra, The Colin MacDonald Pocket Orchestra, to present his original works. Colin’s debut CD Circle of Wind containing his chamber compositions for saxophone was released in 2011.