Pianist Margaret McDonald enjoys a very active performing career regionally and nationally as a recital partner with many distinguished artists including members of the Takacs Quartet, Kathleen Winkler, Wendy Warner, Carol Wincenc, Christina Jennings, Tadeu Coelho, George Pope, David Shifrin, Ben Kamins, William VerMeulen, Philip Myers, Steven Mead, and Velvet Brown. She received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in Piano Performance from the University of Minnesota where she was a student of Lydia Artymiw. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of California - Santa Barbara, where she worked with Anne Epperson.  Ms. McDonald attended the Music Academy of the West (Santa Barbara, CA) in the summers of 2000 through 2002 as a fellowship student in both vocal and instrumental collaboration. She received a fellowship to study at the prestigious Tanglewood Music Center in the summer of 2003 where she worked closely with Dawn Upshaw, Osvaldo Golijov, and Robert Spano. In 2004, she was invited to the Meadowmount School for Strings in New York as a staff accompanist. She has served as an official accompanist for the annual competition at the Music Teachers National Association National Convention since 2005.