McGill/McHale Bio

The McGill/McHale Trio was founded in September of 2014 when brothers Anthony and Demarre McGill were featured artists in a residency at Bowling Green University in Ohio. Pianist Michael McHale joined them and it became immediately clear that they had great things in store for the future!

Since then, the McGill/McHale Trio has performed in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. They were featured in a live radio broadcast on WQXR in April of 2016. Their first album Portraits, released in 2017 on Cedille Records, features Mahershala Ali as narrator and continues to receive rave reviews.

The McGill/McHale Trio loves to perform together but the busy careers of each of the players make the opportunity to tour a rare and special one. In addition to tonight’s performance, the McGill/McHale Trio’s 2019/20 season includes an engagement at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. as well as dates in Danville, KY, Ames, IA and Tulsa, OK.

Anthony McGill serves as the principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic—that orchestra’s first African-American principal player—and maintains a dynamic international career. McGill also serves as an ardent advocate for helping music education reach underserved communities and for addressing issues of diversity, equity and inclusion in classical music. Anthony was honored to take part in the inauguration of President Barack Obama, premiering a piece written for the occasion by John Williams.

McGill’s 2019/20 season includes a collaboration with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato at Carnegie Hall and an appearance at the Kennedy Center, performing the Copland Concerto with the Jacksonville Symphony.

Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, Demarre McGill has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Seattle, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Grant Park, San Diego and Baltimore symphony orchestras and, at age 15, the Chicago Symphony. Now principal flute of the Seattle Symphony, he previously served as principal flute of the Dallas Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Florida Orchestra and Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. In August of 2019 he was named Associate Professor of Flute at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and is an artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School.

Belfast-born Michael McHale has established himself as one of Ireland’s leading pianists and has developed a busy international career as a solo recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician. He has performed with the Minnesota, Hallé, Moscow and Bournemouth symphony orchestras, City of London Sinfonia, and all five of the major Irish orchestras. McHale has appeared with Sir James Galway at the Tanglewood and Tokyo Spring Festivals, Berlin Konzerthaus, Lincoln Center, Symphony Hall in Boston and Pesti Vigadó in Budapest. He has also appeared at Wigmore Hall with clarinetist Michael Collins.

Winner of the Terence Judd/Hallé Award in 2009, Michael was also awarded the Brennan and Field Prizes at the 2006 AXA Dublin International Piano Competition, the 2005 Camerata Ireland/Accenture Award and, in 2016, a Major Individual Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.