At age 19 Donati travelled to the U.S. to study with Philly Joe Jones, and at Dick Groves School in Los Angeles.

He then performed jazz with Allan Zavod and Brian Brown, and played with Peter Cupples' band.

[7] Before moving to Los Angeles, Donati furthered his success by performing with the likes of Tommy Emmanuel, Tina Arena, Jon Stevens and visiting international acts like Melissa Etheridge, Branford Marsalis, and Tribal Tech.

From the late 1990s and onwards Donati recorded and toured with acts like Derek Sherinian (with whom he formed the progressive fusion outfit Planet X), Steve Vai, Allan Holdsworth, Michel Polnareff and Soul SirkUS.

With his father's choice of records, including Louie Bellson and Buddy Rich albums, Donati quickly became a fan of those great jazz drummers, trying to emulate their solos.

"[8] In a Modern Drummer magazine article of June 1999, Donati prefers playing with traditional grip.

"[citation needed] Virgil Donati is widely regarded as one of the most technically advanced drummers of all time.

[1] Bassist Bryan Beller, after performing with Donati and Mike Keneally, described him in a blog post with the following words: "Imagine the technical accuracy of Mike Mangini, the off-the-rails phrasing of Vinnie Colaiuta, the beat-displacement of Dave Weckl, and the rock sensibility of Tommy Aldridge, and that's pretty much Virgil Donati—all of it, all at once, all the time.