Thollem McDonas

Thollem McDonas is a composer, pianist, improviser, teacher and writer.  He was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area of Irish and Cherokee descent.  At the age of five, 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.  After graduating with degrees in both piano performance and composition, he dedicated his 20s and 30s to grassroots political activism.  In 2005, he refocused his attention on a breadth of musics that incorporate his myriad experiences and curiosities.  In this last decade alone, he has played well over 1,000 concerts throughout North America and Europe as a soloist and in collaboration with hundreds of musicians, dancers, and filmmakers.  As leader or co-leader, he has released almost 50 albums in that span on 19 different vanguard labels to international critical acclaim.  “Thollem is an astounding pianist who understands the huge scope of the instrument” (Terry Riley) and who continues to delve into the furthest reaches and sub-genres of Post-Classical, Free Jazz, Noise, Punk, dance and film. A brief cross section of his many recent collaborators include William Parker, Pauline Oliveros, Stefano Scodanibbio, Nels Cline, Mike Watt, Martha Colburn and Matthew Barney.

Thollem McDonas is a composer, pianist, improviser, teacher and writer.  He was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area of Irish and Cherokee descent.  At the age of five, 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.  After graduating with degrees in both piano performance and composition, he dedicated his 20s and 30s to grassroots political activism.  In 2005, he refocused his attention on a breadth of musics that incorporate his myriad experiences and curiosities.  In this last decade alone, he has played well over 1,000 concerts throughout North America and Europe as a soloist and in collaboration with hundreds of musicians, dancers, and filmmakers.  As leader or co-leader, he has released almost 50 albums in that span on 19 different vanguard labels to international critical acclaim.  “Thollem is an astounding pianist who understands the huge scope of the instrument” (Terry Riley) and who continues to delve into the furthest reaches and sub-genres of Post-Classical, Free Jazz, Noise, Punk, dance and film. A brief cross section of his many recent collaborators include William Parker, Pauline Oliveros, Stefano Scodanibbio, Nels Cline, Mike Watt, Martha Colburn and Matthew Barney.

Thollem has worked within many communities throughout the United States, Mexico and Europe. With workshops that culminate in performances by the participants, he  has had the opportunity to live and work among a diversity of artists. As a guest composer and teacher, he maintains that the highlight of his career thus far was a project with a full youth orchestra in an economically-challenged town outside of Oaxaca City, Mexico, guiding them in a week-long workshop of structured improvisational techniques. They successfully performed a cohesive and spontaneously composed concert in Oaxaca City at Teatro San Miguel, without a conductor or music stands, to the delight of the audience and their own Maestro.
 In 2012, Thollem was invited to the Rassegna di Nuova Musica in Macerata, Italy, by its director, the late Stefano Scodanibbio.  He was asked to compose a piano quartet specifically for three of the greatest living Italian string players Francesco Dillon, Daniele Roccato and Marco Rogliano, and presented the piece in the festival that February.

In 2009, Thollem founded Estamos Ensemble, made up equally of musicians from Mexico and the U.S., with the intention to foster more communication and collaboration between musicians of these two bordering countries as well as a better understanding of and appreciation for the citizens of the two countries in general. After recording at Sony Studios in Mexico City and performing in the International Festival in Puebla, he gathered Estamos Ensemble for a week-long residency in San Francisco as well as invited great composers from both sides of the border to compose pieces for the group.  The compositions, premiered at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2010, were written by Ana Lara (MX), Nels Cline (US), Juan Felipe Waller (MX), Pauline Oliveros (US), Joan Jeanrenaud (US), Vinny Golia (US), Jorge Torres Sáenz (MX), and William Parker (US). For this project, Thollem composed “Stirring Awake”, for which he received the American Music Center: CAP award.


In 2008, he was invited to perform the late works of Claude Debussy on the piano on which they were written, as well as his own compositions with Italian contrabassist Stefano Scodanibbio.  The resulting album, On Debussy's Piano And..., is the first recording of the only piano Debussy owned the final fourteen years of his life. In 2006, Thollem was commissioned by The Limón Dance Company for a large-scale piece in commemoration of their 50th year anniversary.

As a writer, Thollem has composed songs for his punk band that speak out against the injustices of war, encouraging listeners to think of myriad aspects of Life and their role in It.  He was invited by Pauline Oliveros to contribute an essay to An Anthology of Essays On Deep Listening (May, 2012).  Deep Listening and the Peripatetic Life of an Improvising Musician was written specifically for this collection.  In 2013, he was invited to write six columns for Full Moon Magazine (Prague). He presently reviews adventurous music by Native American artists for First American Art Magazine (New Mexico).

As a pianist, Thollem performs 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 composer/improviser for film and modern dance.

An extension of Picoas Project with Angela C Villa, Thollem is presently working on a documentary film about artistic engagement in activism and community-building, the footage and monologues of which he has gathered along his extensive travels and collaborations.

Musical collaborators include:
 Stefano Scodanibbio, Mike Watt, Nels Cline, Pauline Oliveros, William Parker, Amy Denio, Arrington de Dionyso, John Dieterich, LaDonna Smith, Faruq Z. Bey, Vinny Golia, Ava Mendoza, Tatsuya Nakatani, Rent Romus, Jacopo Andreini, Gino Robair, Jon Raskin, Joel Peterson, Alex Cline, Theresa Wong, Jack Wright, Greg Saunier, Laura Ortman, John Butcher

Collaborations with film makers include: Martha Colburn, Matthew Barney, Peter Sparling, Tuia Cherici, Carlos Sandoval, David Latreille and Marcos Sánchez D.

Collaborations with dancers and dance companies include: Germaul Barnes (Bitahkiz Ayeli), Gary Masters, Limón West Dance Company, Peter Sparling, Viewsic Expressions, Black Bones, San José Cleveland Ballet