Brian Macdonald, CC

Order of Canada

The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...

 (born May 14, 1928) is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 dancer, choreographer, director of opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

, theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 and musical theatre

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

.

Born in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Macdonald was an original member of the National Ballet of Canada

National Ballet of Canada

The National Ballet of Canada is Canada's largest ballet troupe. It was founded by Celia Franca in 1951 and is based in Toronto, Ontario. Based upon the unity of Canadian trained dancers in the tradition and style of England's Royal Ballet, The National is regarded as one of the premier classical...

. As a choreographer, he created works for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet

Royal Winnipeg Ballet

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is Canada's oldest ballet company and the longest continuously operating ballet company in North America....

 and was artistic director of the Royal Swedish Ballet

Royal Swedish Ballet

The Royal Swedish Ballet is one of the oldest ballet companies in Europe. Based in Stockholm, Sweden, King Gustav III founded the ballet in 1773 as a part of his national cultural project in response to the French and Italian dominance in this field; he also founded the Royal Swedish Opera and the...

 (1964–67), Harkness Ballet

Harkness Ballet

The Harkness Ballet was a major New York ballet company named after its founder Rebekah Harkness. Harkness inherited her husband's fortune in Standard Oil holdings and was a dance lover...

 (1967–68), Israel's Batsheva Dance Theatre (1971–72) and Les Grands Ballet Canadiens (1974–77). Among his ballets during this period were the popular "Time Out of Mind" for the Joffrey Ballet

Joffrey Ballet

The Joffrey Ballet is a dance company in Chicago, Illinois, founded in 1956. From 1995 to 2004, the company was known as The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. The company regularly performs classical ballets including Romeo & Juliet and The Nutcracker, while balancing those classics with pioneering modern...

 and Harkness Ballet

Harkness Ballet

The Harkness Ballet was a major New York ballet company named after its founder Rebekah Harkness. Harkness inherited her husband's fortune in Standard Oil holdings and was a dance lover...

's "Canto Indio."

Macdonald's Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 credits include Maggie Flynn

Maggie Flynn

Maggie Flynn is a musical with a book by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George David Weiss and music and lyrics by Peretti, Creatore, and Weiss....

(1968) and The Mikado

The Mikado

The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...

(1987), for which he was nominated for the Tony Award

Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 for Best Choreography and Best Direction of a Musical.

In 1967, Macdonald was made an Officer of the Order of Canada

Order of Canada

The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...

 and was promoted to Companion in 2001. In 2008, he received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.

External links

• Brian Macdonald at The Canadian Encyclopedia
  The Canadian Encyclopedia
  The Canadian Encyclopedia is a source of information on Canada. It is available online, at no cost. The Canadian Encyclopedia is available in both English and French and includes some 14,000 articles in each language on a wide variety of subjects including history, popular culture, events, people,...
  
  
• Watch Brian Macdonald, Virtuoso Eclectic, a 2008 short film produced for Macdonald's Governor General's Performing Arts Award.