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Thollem McDonas – Solo Piano / Stream of Conscience

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Date/Time
Date(s) - 04/26/2015
8:15 PM - 10:00 PM

Location
ShapeShifter Lab

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Thollem McDonas has been delving into the piano, excavating depths of sound and energy for 48 years. His spontaneous compositions unfold in the moment influenced by his experiences both with the piano and away from it, and at times, within it. The seeds of his work come from near and far: studies as a concert pianist, collaboration, political and ecological activism, teaching, perpetual travel. This adventurous music engages the imagination differently from moment to moment with a stream of unique musical worlds influenced by the individual piano itself, the concert hall, the audience, his tour throughout Europe the month previous to this concert. His music is for the mind and the body, designed to encourage respect for the unpredictability of the present moment, with curiosity and openness in the context of time and events. It is a ‘fearless experimentation… super-human handiwork” (New York City Jazz Record).

Since 2006, Thollem McDonas has been traveling perpetually, performing his own compositions from San Francisco to Oaxaca to Sicily to Stockholm to New Orleans and onward. “Brilliant, bursting pearls in the astonished air” (Signal To Noise), Thollem’s music “transgresses genre boundaries as much as it transcends them” (All About Jazz NY), making him “one of the most captivating pianists working today.” (Jazz.pt – Portugal)

About his work, Terry Riley notes that Thollem ”inhabits a world uniquely his own, rhythmically, harmonically and formally. A true original.” William Parker observes that he “travels the world looking for magical sounds that will enlighten and inform him about the possibilities of how to live.” After Thollem’s solo performance at Trinosophes in Detroit, Susan Alcorn admitted, “I will never forget this concert.”

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