"Unclassifiable and extraordinarily equipped, a travel through disparate musics. Thollem McDonas redefines the concept of performance in solo pianoforte".
- All About Jazz, Italia
SHORT BIO:
Thollem Mcdonas was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area of Irish and Cherokee descent. Not long after birth he began studying the keyboard repertoire from the medieval to the 20th century and studied with many notable teachers including Aiko Onishi and Lou Harrison and Allen Strange. After graduating with degrees in both piano performance and composition he decided to roam the west coast with a backpck rather than pursue a career as a concert pianist. He worked for several years in grassroots political movements and ecological restoration projects before coming back to music with his full focus. He is currently touring perpetually, back and forth between Europe and the States, mostly as a soloist but also in collaboration with many other individuals and groups.
Thollem's travels as a performer and teacher have covered much of the North American continent and Europe (he often leads listening and group improvisation workshops as well as master-classes). He is a founding member of several innovative ensembles, and is responsible, in full or in part, for many albums of original music on several different vanguard labels from several different countries. His music is diverse, with each album and every concert exploring a variety of approaches and paths, resulting in dramatically different outcomes.
Thollem is a 2006 recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts Meet The Composer grant. He was commissioned by The Limon Dance Company for a large-scale piece in commemoration of their 50th year anniversary. Last Autumn he spent 15 weeks playing 65 concerts while circumnavigating the U.S. covering over 19,000 miles. This September he has been invited to perform the late works of Claude Debussy on the piano on which they were written, as well as his own comprovisations with Stefano Scodanibbio. This will be the first album (There Seen From Other Places) ever recorded on Debussy's piano.
Thollem has performed in theaters, art galleries, universities, elementary schools, concert halls, jazz clubs, rock clubs, festivals, warehouses, house concerts, streets, forests, riots and on television and radio. He has performed piano concertos with symphonies, played in West African drumming troupes, Javanese gamelan ensembles, an afro-punk band, with hundreds of free improv groups, and as an accompanist and a composer for opera and modern dance. His music appeals to a wide variety of audiences because of these rich and wildly disparate experiences. Currently Thollem primarily plays his own comprovisations which he calls Eccentriclect Music, for people and everyone else.
"Thollem dives headlong into fascinating unforeseen and bold musical adventures that make him one of the most interesting pianists of the current improvised music genre...the result is the natural consequence of being intrinsically eclectic at heart. His inventiveness is facilitated by his highly developed virtuosity".
Eduardo Chagas, Tomajazz
CALENDAR:
June 15th at L'AtelierTampon-Ramier - Paris, France
June 16th at CrewHassan - Lisboa, Portugal
June 17th at TremAzul - Lisboa, Portugal
June 18th at TeatroDoCampoAlegre - Porto, Portugal With: Germaul Barnes (BitahkizAyeli)
June 19th at BracoDePrata - Lisboa, Portugal Also: Duassemicolcheias
June 28th at Centr'arti - San Marino With Massimo Semprini
June 28th and 29th at Centr'arti - San Marino (Improvisation workshop)
July 4th at SummerStage - Florence, Italia With WaristerrorTerroriswar
July 5th at Tagofest - Massa, Italia With WaristerrorTerroriswar
July 6th FestivalStradeBlu PiazzaVittorioVeneto - Modigliana, Italia with Dario Neri "concerto in quadrifonia per Pianoforte e Macchine Sonore"
July 10th at ScuolaPopolareDiMusicaIvanIllich - Bologna with Nicola Guazzaloca
July 12th at MenzaPriKoritu - Ljubljana, Slovenia
July 15th to 17th - Recording new WaristerrorTerroriswar album (PrivatePoverty)
July 18th at CPA - Firenze With WaristerrorTerroriswar
July 19th - Lugo With WaristerrorTerroriswar
July 20th at Ivan Illich - Bologna With WaristerrorTerroriswar
July 31st-August 17th - NorthwestTour (California, Oregon, Washington)
August 8th - WorkshopAndHouseConcert - Bainbridge Island, Washington
August 10th at House Concert - Seattle, Washington
August 11th at the Silo - Portland, Oregon (Recording with Naked Future)
August 12th at The Cave/GreenOnion - Portland, Oregon with Arrington deDionyso and Tim Duroche
September 25th at TBA - Siena, Italia with Waristerror Terroriswar
September 27th at Trok - Milano, Italia with Waristerror Terroriswar
September 29th at TheLabencheMuseum With Stefano Scodanibbio in Brive-la-Gaillarde, France (I have been invited to compose, play, and record on Debussy's only piano he had the last 14 years of his life, and I invited Stefano to join me in improvisations based on compositions I am preparing specifically for this concert).
October 10th At MeridianGallery - San Francisco with Bloom Ensemble
October 22nd-25th At BohemianNationalHome - Detroit, MI ImprovWorkshopsAndConcert With Bloom Ensemble
October 26th - Toronto (TBA)
October 28th - Toronto (TBA) with Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra
October 31st at Kerry Town - Ann Arbor with Mark Kirschenmann and Joel Peterson
November 1st at Heaven Gallery - Chicago with Mark Kirschenmann and Jason Stein
November 10th at St. David's - Austin, TX with Spank Dance Company
November 17th at the Blue Nile (Open Ears Series) - New Orleans, LA
TOURS THIS PAST YEAR:
15 week 65 concert tour around the states and Canada (Autumn, 2007).
7 Week tour in Ireland, France, Switzerland (January through March).
6 week tour in France, Portugal Italy, and Slovenia (June and July, 2008).
RECENT FESTIVALS:
Trasporti Maritimi (Livernon, France) - Tagofest (Massa, Italy) - Strade Blu Festival (Ravenna, Italy) Olympia Festival of Experimental Musics (Olympia, Washington) - Terra Trema (Cherbourg, France) - Bohemian National Home Festival of Jazz and Improvised Musics (Detroit, Michigan) - Edgetone Summit (San Francisco, California) - Big Sur Experimental Music Festival at the Henry Miller Library (Big Sur, California).
Thank you very much! I ahve recently recorded the new stuff perfectly and I need to get the recordings from me father. And Ill get them up as soon as possible.
Hello, dear Thollem, thank you very much for finding me here! It is a honour for me to became your space-friend! Really we're going to work together in october? WOW - I'm very glad to get this possibility to meet so wonderful musician!! My very best wishes to you from Leipzig and very excited mspiano ;)
How are things going in Europe? I just met someone who said he went to one of your concerts, and he said you were one of the best pianist he'd ever heard.
me too! tomorrow afternoon comes the tuner :) i suppose there will be a good public, there are many curious to listen, even if perhaps most curious we are!
Hi Thollem 1, 2, 3, or 10 concerts, it's a pleasure for me, yes normally I will be available in September, i hope to see you in September, or in Summer if you are here, tell me more, take care Friendly Bruno
Yes ! Everything is OK here ! We just finished La Terra Trema, (it was great !!), and we're starting an other festival, with a lot of gigs too... So we're waiting holidays...! Have a nice week end !
Unfortunately when you come for concerts i'll be out of Italy. One or two years ago i saw you in Bologna (Scuola Popolare Ivan Illich).. very great concert!! hopefully in the next
My dear Thollem, I have listened to your remarkable songs, and from them I know that you are *always* falling in love in 30 seconds with everything around you. You live beautifully, and I am blessed to be part of the 7 billion :).
