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Thollem

Thollem's extensive travels as a performer have covered much of the North American continent and Europe. In the past 6 years, he has added 21 albums to his discography on 9 different vanguard labels in 4 different countries. His musical experiences are extremely diverse and his ever-expanding variety of approaches to music-making result in dramatically new and different outcomes.

Not long after birth, Thollem began studying the keyboard repertoire from the medieval to the 20th century. After graduating with degrees in both piano performance and composition, he dedicated his time for years in grassroots political and ecological movements before returning to his own music with his full focus in 2006. He is currently touring perpetually as a soloist, in collaboration with many other individuals and groups, as well as leading large ensemble free improvisation workshops.

Thollem's performed in theaters, art galleries, universities, elementary schools, concert halls, jazz clubs, rock clubs, festivals, warehouses, house concerts, streets, forests, riots and on television, radio and the internet. He has performed piano concertos with symphonies, played in West African drumming troupes, Javanese gamelan ensembles, punk bands, free improv ensembles, and regularly collaborates as a comproviser for film and modern dance.

Awards

Meet the Composer: Creative Connections, 2007 Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation: USArtists, 2009 - Estamos Ensemble, Director American Music Center: CAP, 2010 - 'Stirring Awake' debuted at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts


Tags

1

Performance / Tour

Jazz This Week: Jeff Coffin and the Mu'tet, Peter Martin, Funky Butt Brass Band CD Release, Thollem McDonas, and More

Jazz This Week: Jeff Coffin and the Mu'tet, Peter Martin, Funky Butt Brass Band CD Release, Thollem McDonas, and More

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

This week's calendar of jazz and creative music in and around St. Louis includes the Jazz at the Bistro debut of a touring saxophonist who's already built up a nice local following; the release of a new album by some local favorites; shows from several fine piano players; and, as the saying goes, much more. Let's go to the highlights.... Tonight, saxophonist Jeff Coffin and his eclectic jazz-fusion group the Mu’tet will make their debut at Jazz at the Bistro ...

16

Performance / Tour

Thollem McDonas to Perform Wednesday, May 23 at Laumeier Sculpture Park

Thollem McDonas to Perform Wednesday, May 23 at Laumeier Sculpture Park

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

Pianist Thollem McDonas, a frequent visitor to St. Louis in recent years, is coming back again this spring to perform at 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, May 23 at Laumeier Sculpture Park. McDonas (pictured) will play an hour-long set outdoors at Laumeier with multi-instrumentalist Arrington de Dionyso and electronic musician Eric Hall as part of Hall's year-long gig as the park's composer-in-residence. The event is free and open to the public. McDonas was last in St. Louis in January 2011 to play ...

McDonas took the audience for such an exhilarating ride, leaving us gasping to keep up. Thollem’s hands were like ten pounding steam-pistons, his urgent ostinati and wildly careening rouládes ringing out clearly, starkly; brilliant, bursting pearls in the astonished air. It seems beyond the capacity of one human being to contain so much densely-packed creative energy �" putting aside for the moment the perplexing question of how Thollem manages to put out all that donner und blitzen on the keyboard without smashing himself and/or the instrument to bits. - Tom Djll, Signal To Noise Magazine

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Primary Instrument

Piano

Clinic/Workshop Information

Fusing my work with Estamos Ensemble in the U.S./Mexico and my workshops on active listening and large ensemble improvisation, I've created Fronteras Assembled: structured improvisations based on the social/political dynamics that all the various situations of geo-political borders create. These are musical meditations on real-life situations that are constantly effecting the way we perceive and interact with our fellow human beings within and across the borders of the world. They are also structures that create unique musical challenges for large ensembles especially in an improvised setting that can potentially lead to fresh discoveries of music-making and relationships among individuals in an ensemble. Explore sound and music in an immediate and experiential way, investigating the principles of acoustics, dynamics, timbre, articulation, rhythm, the varieties of relationships in a musical group dynamic, spontaneous composition, structured improvisations, and conducted group improvisation

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Music

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