Evento

Merrimans' Playhouse Jazz Performance Series presents Thollem's Myriads

Thollem McDonas - Myriads - solo piano. Thollem (tall-um) McDonas has been traveling perpetually and performing his own compositions for seven years, from San Francisco to Oaxaca to Sicily to Sweden to New Orleans and so on. Absorbing approaches to the musics of a wide variety of cultures,Thollem swirls them outwards into new and unusual musical compositions.

His music contains nuances and collisions from his studies of 350 years of keyboard musics, Gamelan, punk, Middle Eastern, Ethiopian, jazz, blues and musics found in the ever-changing environments he experiences. About his work, Terry Riley notes that Thollem "inhabits a world uniquely his own, rhythmically, harmonically and formally. A true original."

As a soloist, Thollem presents seeds of compositions, complete pieces, and new material, spontaneously composed in the moment. Thollem exclaims, "I make music that I hope stimulates the mind and the body, that's sexy and athletic and revolutionary and spiritual and loving and that will shake people awake, starting with me first."