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Laura is holding a saxophone.

Laura Macdonald

Lecturer, Jazz

Laura Macdonald is a Scottish Saxophonist, specialising in Jazz. She has an extensive career in performance, composition, collaboration, recording and teaching.

Laura began playing alto saxophone at the age of sixteen at school in Prestwick, Ayrshire. Her progress was swift. Within months she was playing lead alto in the Strathclyde Youth Jazz Orchestra and gaining her first international experience, performing with SYJO at Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

In 1992 Laura briefly studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Glasgow. In 1995 after hearing Laura performing at a concert, Dean of Students, Larry Bethune, on a visit to Glasgow, gave Laura a full scholarship to Berklee School of Music in Boston. She studied with George Garzone and Bill Pierce, formerly a saxophonist with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and a distinguished teacher, musician and bandleader, and graduated in 1997 having won the school’s annual Excellence in Performance award.

In 1998, Laura became lead alto player in the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, playing the music of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis and Gil Evans and contributing her composition Royal Mile to the orchestra’s The Edinburgh Suite. She also occupied the lead alto chair in an all-star Ellington Big Band alongside former Ellington musicians Buster Cooper and Barry Lee Hall in Switzerland in 2000.

Laura also has a distinguished career as a recording artist. Following the release of her debut album, Laura (2000), Laura has continued to release original work, as well as collaborations, tributes and commissions by the European Jazz Network, the Commonwealth Games, the Martyn Bennett Trust and the London Jazz Festival. Alongside her work as a recording aritst, Laura has toured extensively performing in countries such as Sweden, Germany and as part of the ‘Jazz Cruise 08’ in the Caribbean.

In October 2022, Laura became the first female saxophone lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In 2025, Laura became the interim head of Jazz.

Most recently, Laura has been commissioned by Creative Scotland to compose a Suite of New Music for a new album release and tour in 2026.

Laura continues to strive forward as one of the UK’s most prominent women in Jazz.

Accolades:

  • Paul Hamlyn Composition Award (Double Nominee)
  • Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year, Scottish Jazz Awards (Nominated, 2021)
  • ‘Take Five’ Initiative Award, fundeed by the Jerwood Foundation (2005)
  • Scottish Young Jazz Musician of the Year Award (Winnner, 1997)
  • Outstanding Performer Prize, Glasgow International Jazz Festival (Nominated, 1996)