“In composing the Life Cycles Suite, I wanted to capture a general portrait of one’s development over a lifetime—the changing perspectives, priorities, understanding, revelations, experiences, and personal history that are part of a life lived and that influence us all in one form or another.

I decided to use my recollections of my own journey through life as a musical self-portrait. I set out to portray, through music, the different touchstones and phases one goes through, creating a broader reflection on the unfolding of a life’s journey. My hope is that this music can provide a framework through which others may recognize similarities in their own experiences, invoking a sense of recollection and nostalgia.

While the way we evolve as individuals remains unique to each of us, I believe we share many milestones along the way. In listening to the suite, one may recognize and reflect upon many of those milestones and stages of personal development within one’s own journey.

While I have recently recorded two CDs as co-leader of the Canadian Jazz Collective—Septology (2022, HGBS) and Live at Le Vauban (2023, Fresh Sound)—as well as a number of other recordings as a sideman, Life Cycles is a long-overdue and ambitious representation of my work as a composer and saxophonist. It is my first recording as a leader in almost a decade.

As with my previous recording as a leader, Generations (2018, HGBS), I am joined on this recording by an international, multigenerational ensemble spanning three generations: my daughter Virginia MacDonald on clarinet, pianist Bruce Barth, bassist Mark Lewandowski, and Terry Clarke on drums.”

—Kirk MacDonald, October 2026