Billboard

IN LOVING MEMORY OF MY MOTHER GERALDINE SERINE
Sept. 30, 1940 - Dec. 31, 2008

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 Confluence Music, for people and everyone else.

"Thollem Mcdonas does what few can: He combines extreme imagination with terrific postclassical chops and an ability to communicate through melody."
Greg Burk, L.A. Times

"Thollem has that rare gift of soulful equilibrium, which he alternates with digital dexterities that have few equals on the current scene. My favourite moments doing my reviewer's job are like this, the very instant when you come across a genius and are among the first ones to realize and tell the world."
- Massimo Ricci, TouchingExtremes

"McDonas' piano are Defalla (driving rhythms and Iberian modes), Schoenberg (unresolved dissonances a mile high), the collapsing/expanding tempi of Nancarrow, and splatterings of Cecil Taylor..."
-Tom Djll, Signal to Noise

"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". Eduardo Chagas, Tomajazz

"McDonas welds elements of jazz, blues and classical music into a mighty tower of song, then shatters his construct with the breathless bull-rush of a mystic improviser."
-The River Front Times

"McDonas is a pianist with highly developed technical skills at the piano. His flourishes and runs up and down the keyboard are executed with crystal clarity."
- Winthrop Bedford, Jazz Improv Magazine

"With each song McDonas creates a universe of its own...very original... a fresh voice"
- Dolf Mulder, VitalWeekly

"Pianist Thollem McDonas is a particularly powerful voice, stacking huge gravities of chords one on top of the other with little regard for conventional musical syntax."
David Keenan, Glasgow

LABELS:
Edgetone Records, Pax Records, Creative Sources, Saravah
Albums coming this year on: ESP Disk, Porter Records, and Amirani Records

CONCERTS FOR 2009

*April 17th at The Detroit Institute Of Arts - Detroit, MI with Skeeter Shelton and Joel Peterson (BoxDeserterTrio)
*April 18th at Kerry Town Concert Hall, Ann Arbor, MI (BoxDeserterTrio)
*April 19th at Hungry Brain, Chicago IL (BoxDeserter Trio)
*April 20th at The Iron Post, Urbana, IL (BoxDeserter Trio)
*April 21st at CreativeMusicForum, Springfield, IL (BoxDeserter Trio)
*April 23rd at the Tap Room - St. Louis, MO (BoxDeserter Trio)
*April 24th at the Tap Room - St. Louis, MO (BoxDeserter Trio)
*April 24th at Mangia - St. Louis, MO (BoxDeserter Trio) With Dave Stone
*April 25th at EarthHouse - Indianapolis, IN (BoxDeserter Trio)
*April 26th at UrbanSpirit - Columbus, OH (BoxDeserter Trio)
*April 28th at Exile, NY, NY (BoxDeserter Trio) with Martha Colburn and Germaul Barnes
*May 5th and 6th at Portland State University - Portland, OR (Comprovisation Workshop and Solo Concert)
*May 7th at 1412 Gallery - Seattle, WA with Amy Denio
*Finishing up new albums - Starting new projects*
*June 22nd at Fundraiser Benefit for Outsound New Music Summit Oakland, CA With Jon Raskin
*June 27-July 12th at Prisma Forum Oaxaca/Mexico City, Mexico (Comprovisation Workshops/Solo Concert)
*July 16th and 17th at Mexican Centre for Music and Sonic Arts Morelia, Mexico (Leading A Comprovisation Workshop, Solo concert)
*July 22nd at Edgetone Summit, San Francisco with Vinny Golia and Rent Romus
*July 31st at Central Park Summer Stage Festival - NY, NY with Germaul Barnes/Viewsic Expressions
*August 8th at St. Mary's Park - Bronx, NY with Germaul Barnes/Viewsic Expressions
*August 18th at Bowery - Poetry Club NY, NY (Solo)
*August/September in Mexico touring and working on the Mexican/American Comprovisers Exchange
*October 27th-November 7th - Thollem/Stefano Scodanibbio California Tour
*November 2nd, at Mills College Oakland, CA

2008 CALENDAR
June 15th at L'Atelier Tampon-Ramier - Paris, France
June 16th at Crew Hassan - Lisboa, Portugal
June 17th at Trem Azul - Lisboa, Portugal
June 18th at TeatroDoCampoAlegre - Porto, Portugal With: Germaul Barnes (BitahkizAyeli)
June 19th at Braco de Prata - 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 Summer Stage - Florence, Italia With WaristerrorTerroriswar
July 5th at Tagofest - Massa, Italia With WaristerrorTerroriswar
July 6th festival STRADE BLU piazza Vittorio Veneto - Modigliana, Ravenna, Italia with Dario Neri "concerto in quadrifonia per Pianoforte e Macchine Sonore"
July 10th at Scuola Popolare Di Musica Ivan Illich - Bologna with Nicola Guazzaloca
July 12th at Menza Pri Koritu - Ljubljana, Slovenia
July 18th at CPA - Firenze
July 19th at Franfresca - Lugo
July 20th at Ivan Illich - Bologna
August 6th at House Concert - Portland, Oregon (1126 Sumner St.) With Arrington deDionyso Also: "WhyIMustBeCareful"
August 8th at Revelada - Bainbridge Island, Washington
August 9th at Emmanuelle Church - Mercer Island, Washington
August 10th at House Concert - Seattle, Washington
August 11th at the Silo - Portland, Oregon (Recording with Arrington deDionyso
august 12th at The Green Onion - Seattle, Washington with Arrington deDionyso and Tim Duroche
September 18th at Ex Emerson - Firenze, Italia with Waristerror Terroriswar
September 25th at University of Siena - Siena, Italia with Waristerror Terroriswar
September 26th at Centre'Arte - San Marino with Waristerror Terroriswar
September 27th at TROK - Milan, Italy with Waristerror Terroriswar
September 29th at The Labenche Museum 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 8 at Meridian Gallery - San Francisco, California with Rent Romus and Steven Baker (Bloom Ensemble)
October 19th at Musicians Union Hall - San Francisco, California with Rent Romus (Bloom Ensemble)
October 21st at University of Ohio/Akron - Akron, OH
October 22nd at Old First Presbyterian Church - Columbus, OH Also Simone Weisenfels and Adam Smith
October 23rd at NY Museum Of Art And Desgin - New York with Martha Colburn
October 24th at The Contemporary Art Institute - Detroit, MI with Joel Peterson, Kurt Pryzby, and Marko Novachkov
October 25th at The Contemporary Art Institute - Detroit, MI With Michael Carrey and Faruq Z. Bey
October 26th - Toronto at Array Music with Joe Sobrara, Nick Storring, Aaron Lumley Nicole Rampersaud
October 28th - Toronto at Array Music with Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra
October 30th at The Contemporary Art Institute - Detroit, MI
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 5th at Lemp Art Center - St. Louis, MO
November 6th at CBGB - St. Louis, MO for Eric Hall's birthday!
November 7th at Schlafly's Tap Room - St. Louis, MO
November 10th at St. David's - Austin, TX with Spank Dance Company
November 11th at Salvage Vanguard - Austin, TX
November 12th at Club DeVille - Austin, TX
November 14th at Progress - Austin, TX with The Weird Weeds
November 17th at The Blue Nile (Open Ears Series) - New Orleans, LA with Nick Sanzenbach
December 2nd at The Berkeley Art Museum - Berkeley, CA with Martha Colburn
December 5th - 12th A Semi-Formal Portland Residency
December 5th at Portland State University - Portland, OR (Composition Seminar in the afternoon)
December 5th at Interbeing - Portland, OR solo and with an ensemble featuring a score by Scott
Stobbe for accordion, violin, 2 saxophones, guitar, percussion and piano.
December 6th at Worksound - Portland, OR with Derek Johnson-solo cello with slide projector plus a Portland based group featuring Scott Brasil-piano Drew Adams-Guitar/vocals Kelvin Pittman-Saxophone, Drums
December 8th at Boxlift Building - Portland, OR with Jonathan Seilaff
December 10th at Sound Roots School Of Modern Music - Portland, OR Solo Piano
December 11th at The Artistery - Portland, OR with Tim DuRoche
December 12th at New Music Society - Portland, OR (Piano Summit) Also Bonnie Miksch, Branic Howard

Concerts 2007:
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 Portugal Italy, and Slovenia (June and July, 2008).
Around the states (Currently).

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) - Big Sur Experimental Music Festival at the Henry Miller Library (Big Sur, California) - Edgetone Summit (San Francisco, California)

Blog - see all 3

Touring/RecordingUpdate2008 Nov 11, 2008

It's been a long time since I have written about my travels.
Much of the reason for my absence is because I have been traveling and recording too much to write. I have also had some difficult family issues to deal with that has been very consuming emotionally as …

Concert On Debussy's Piano Aug 22, 2008

On September 29th I will be joined by Stefano Scodanibbio in at Musée Labenche in Brive-la-Gaillarde, France to play comprovisations of mine on the only piano Claude Debussy owned the last 14 years of his life. No one has ever recorded on this instrument, it is an …

Confluence Music May 04, 2008

Confluence Music is a term I invented to describe my music, because I knew of no other term in existence that was appropriate otherwise. My music has no particular roots nor is it a rebellion against any music or musical philosophy. I am interested primarily in the …

Solo at Z Venue January 25th 2008

Bitahkiz Ayeli

Solo at Z Venue Scavengers and Vagabonds

Bitahkiz Ayeli 2

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Discography - see all 13

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  ComprovisationsOnDebussy'sPiano Thollem/Scodanibbio

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  TheBrutalReality OfModernBrutality

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  Somuchheaven Somuchhell

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  BoxDeserter-TwoRevolutions (SeptetLiveImprovisation)

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  IntuitionScienceAndSex WithArringtonDeDionyso