Interference Series Presents: Thollem McDonas - Solo Piano

"Listening to Thollem play the piano is an astonishing experience. He has an innate ability to compose transcendent music using the piano as his expressive voice and to explore the depth and range of the instrument like no one else.” (Joan Jeanrenaud, Kronos Quartet)

Thollem's music is genre-bending, code-switching, omni-idiomatic, and intersectional. Quality Revolutionary Entertainment! His music expresses the culmination of his life’s experiences in dialogue with the universe and fellow human beings. As a result of growing up in the culturally diverse SF Bay Area, his classical piano training, and his itinerant lifestyle since, Thollem's interests, influences and inspirations range widely. He has spent most of his life performing and collaborating with hundreds of artists and communities throughout N. America and Europe and has released well over 100 albums on 27 different vanguard labels. Multitudes have inspired and influenced him as a pianist from Scriabin to Monk, Scarlatti to Nina Simone, Glenn Gould, John Cage, Art Tatum, as well as his contemporaries. Thollem's parents were both pianists, and his earliest memories were of climbing up to play the inside of the piano.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Thollem began playing the piano, composing and improvising as a child, absorbing the sounds of his culturally diverse upbringing. As an adult he has continued to incorporate the breadth of musics he has experienced on his extensive travels. Since 2005, he has played over 1,500 concerts throughout N. America and Europe as a soloist and in collaboration with other musicians, dancers and filmmakers. In that time span, as lead facilitator or co-leader, Thollem has released close to 100 albums on 23 different vanguard labels. A very brief cross section of his many collaborators include William Parker, Pauline Oliveros, Stefano Scodanibbio, Nels Cline, Rob Mazurek, Ravish Momin, Michael Wimberly, Mike Watt and Carmina Escobar. He is the founding director of Estamos Ensemble, a Mexican-American cross border ensemble for musical exchange, the long-term temporary Guida of the Sicilian Improvisers Orchestra and is a published author about art, politics and his travels in NewMusic Box, The Anthology of Essays On Deep Listening, Full Moon Magazine (Prague) and First American Art Magazine.

“Thollem is a modern griot who has absorbed sounds from every place he has visited.”– William Parker, from Conversations II (Rogue Art)“Thollem displays a chameleonic ability to adapt to suit whatever musical context presents itself...there is more than one way to access the infinite.”- Daniel Spicer, The Wire“Blue collar virtuoso."- Detroit Metro Times

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