Thollem McDonas is a pianist and composer who has released dozens of recordings, and he has worked with these artists and organizations -- Stefano Scodanibbio, Rent Romus, Alex Cline, Amy Denio, Faruq Z. Bey, Estamos Ensemble, Arrington deDionyso, John Dieterich, Limón Dance Company, LaDonna Smith, Vinny Golia, Ava Mendoza, Eduardo Ricci, Tatsuya Nakatani, Jacopo Andreini, Gino Robair, Joel Peterson, Nicola Guazzaloca, Andrea Caprara, Rick Rivera, Marco Eneidi, Tim DuRoche, Bruce Ackley, Theresa Wong, Greg Saunier, Tsigoti, and others. He has received numerous awards -- including the the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation's USArtists International Award, as the founder and Artistic Director of Estamos Ensemble; a CAP grant from the American Music Center; and a Creative Connections grant through Meet the Composer. He was commissioned by The Limon Dance Company for a large-scale piece in commemoration of their 50th year anniversary.

     Recently I talked with Thollem about his influences, the approach that he calls comprovisations, his recent tour with Tsigoti, his work with the Estamos Ensemble, and his other ongoing projects. 

Dan: How did you first get interested in music?

Thollem: My mom was a piano teacher and and my father played in piano bars for years. So, from my perspective it was just what people did, like argue and/or laugh.

Dan: Your music is associated with the piano. Do you also play other instruments. If so, which ones?

Thollem: I played the trumpet in high school and continued until the only trumpet I ever owned was stolen out of the back of my pick-up truck about 15 years ago. I also play hand drums. I've thought about perhaps bringing them into a performance or recording at some point, but don't yet feel compelled to.

Dan: Who are some of your musical influences?

Thollem: My parents, were the first and foremost musical influences on my life, though I took a completely different path than them. I also had the fortune of living close and during the heyday of Kuumbwa Jazz Club in Santa Cruz where I was able to see McCoy Tyner, Pharaoh Sanders and so many others in what was a tiny club at the time. This was as a teenager. At the same time I was studying classical piano music and listening to Velvet Underground, early Pink Floyd and Black Flag among many others. In college I had some great teachers, including Dwight Cannon and Hafez Modirzadeh, who encouraged me to do my thing by doing theirs. Since I have been influenced by hundreds or thousands of musicians in ways I am both aware and unaware of.

Dan: You seem to be touring incessantly! What would you say are some interesting relationships between the live shows you have done, and your development as an artist?

Thollem: For me both the traveling and playing concerts are essential elements to my personal and artistic development. Traveling gives me the opportunities to meet different people, and experience strange places and smells and foods and sounds. It is also challenging, uncomfortable and dangerous all of which teach me about myself and where I came from originally. Performing live gives immediate feedback from an audience, an energetic connection that I think is not possible to experience through any other means. Also, I have played with so many musicians in a live setting, which is much different than if I was staying put in one geographic location and playing with my friends in my apartment which is a great thing as well, of course.

Dan: What would you say are some things you think about as you put together a tour? For instance, often you travel alone, and sometimes you play with different musicians in different places where you play. 

Thollem: Of course I have to think about money because I can't afford to just hit the road without some means of financing it. This is also one of the reasons I don't pay rent anywhere…The other practical consideration is geography and trying to set up a tour that doesn't double back on itself too much or take wild long-distance leaps too often. Then I have to play in venues that are open to the music I will be making and then for venues that have pianos, which pretty much narrows my choices down to juuuuuust about zero. Fortunately now I am revisiting places repeatedly, which makes everything much easier than when I first started touring.

Dan: It was fun playing with you several years ago, when we had that quintet with Paul Hartsaw, Joel Wanek, Jerry Bryerton, and Jayve Montgomery.

Thollem: I had a great time that night as well several years ago and look forward to playing with you and the other folks at some point. It's the best moment in all of time to travel with music because of the concept and intention of improvised music!

Dan: How would you explain your concept of comprovisations? How is that different from just improvising or composing with improvisation?

Thollem: For me, there is not really much difference. In a way comprovisation is just an efficient way to say what it is I do since I compose and improvise. However, when I play solo I am often specifically improvising with snippets of composed material or within composed structures, or utilizing elements of concepts of my compositions in a spontaneous swirl. So, this is much different than the traditional sense of improvising within a jazz tune or playing a composition. I see just about everything in a unique somewhere between composition and improvisation. If there are humans involved in the actual performance then there is always some spontaneity as well as some composition.

Dan: Your performance during the Experimental Piano Series was great. Do you ever approach a performance with the space itself or other elements of the concert with a particular concept in mind (such as that performance), or are there elements of the sound of a particular piano, such as the one you played then, which affect a performance or how a set of music evolves?

Thollem: Definitely the room and audience and piano affect how I play on a given night. These elements effect my approach and result much more so than the mood I'm in, which I really keep from getting in the way of what I'm saying musically. For instance, I'm interested in expressing my experiences that are beyond my immediate personal feelings. I do 'feel' audiences and want to connect with them. There is not much of a colder experience than finishing a concert and feeling there was no connection regardless of how I may have felt about the musical merit of the concert. Also, each piano is an individual from a 50 foot Busendorfer to an 80 year old piano that is barely standing. To me they are always interesting even if it happens to be physically limiting or even hurt to play. Also, I had the great fortune to play on the only piano Debussy owned the last 14 years of his life. That was more of an existential experience that changed the way I played. So, there are many things that come into play when I play, least of which is my own personal mood, hopefully.

Dan: I enjoyed Tsigoti’s recent performance in Chicago. It’s unlike any other musical context I’ve heard you in. How did that project come together?

Thollem: That came about from sitting in my friend's kitchen in Tuscany. There's a household of musicians who are surrounded by other musicians and artists dotting the hills out there in old stone houses. Andrea (Tsigoti's drummer) and I thought it'd be great to make a punk album in the 3 days I had left there. I had written a bunch of words when I was in Prague just before about war and my disgust and intolerance for it and thought I could turn them into songs. So, we made The Brutal Reality Of Modern Brutality that was later released on Edgetone Records. It was music with a certain attitude and angry lyrics about political crap that makes poor people kill each other. It was pretty natural for all of us even though none of us play with this particular attitude normally. As the saying goes, "if You're not angry You're not paying attention" and we are all pissed off, and we also don't take ourselves too seriously. So it comes off as spirited angry music made by friends who have a lot of fun together.

Dan: Tsigoti’s “Private Poverty Speaks to the People of the Party” is a really interesting recording. How did that recording project come together?

Thollem: This was our second album together. The Brutal Reality was actually released under the band name Waristerror Terroriswar. We had such a great time making the first album and there was interest in Europe (The Brtual Reality was practically completely ignored in the states) for us to make more music together so the next time I was in Italy we had a tour and made a second album. All three albums (our third album The Imagination Liberation Front Thinks Again has just been mastered) were made in the community studio in Nipozzano where my friends live. They have an old rickety broken down piano that we all agreed was the perfect piano for this band. We recorded ourselves (we have complimentary engineering skills and experience) and the album was mastered by our friend Alessandro Maffei who is a hugely respected engineer in Italy. It was released by ESP-disk, and now we will begin shopping the third album around to different labels, hint hint…

Dan: Is your wife also musical? Do you ever collaborate with her on musical projects?

Thollem: She is very musical in the sense that she loves music and has big ears and expresses herself very well when talking about music. I think she has a beautiful voice and some kind of inherent understanding of phrasing that is unique. However, she doesn't perform and is not interested in performing. I do bounce ideas off of her often and she helps me understand what I am doing through our conversations. So, in this we we are collaborating, for sure!

Dan: You participated in World Listening Day last summer. What did you do on that day?

Thollem: I attended my friend Cork Marcheschi's art opening in California. He makes amazing electric art many of which make sound. I've got to get a video up of me playing his works that day. Also, I spread the word to everyone I met through a variety of vocalizings and listened deeply at different moments throughout the day. I regret that I was too busy preparing for the Estamos Ensemble residency that was coming up to organize any group activities this year. It was a good reminder to me however, to start giving listening walks again as I travel. I've found this is a great way to get to know an unknown (to me), or known area is to bring other folks along to listen to different environments. 

Dan: What are some recent developments with Estamos Ensemble? 

Thollem: Estamos Ensemble has ten musicians now, and it's growing since I've brought them together to do my part in bridging the giant gap across the border between improvisers and composers. In my travels around the states it became increasingly apparent that there is a lack of involvement with our Mexican counterparts and I feel now more than ever it's important for artists to have dialogue across borders especially the one we share with Mexico. It's been a year now that I began organizing this group which consists of musicians from both sides of the border. 

Dan: How was Estamos Ensemble's recent performance at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts?

Thollem: It was great! We just performed at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, premiering compositions written for us by Pauline Oliveros, William Parker, Nels Cline, Joan Jeanrenaud, Vinny Golia and myself from the States and Ana Lara, Juan Felipe Waller and Jorge Torres Saenz from Mexico. I also arranged a concert for the four Mexican musicians to play a concert with Rova that same week. I'm now beginning to shop these recordings around to labels.

Dan: What other projects have you been working on?

Thollem: Stefano Scodanibbio and I recorded a duo album that will be coming out on Die Schachtel -- I played Debussy's piano during that recording! Several months ago I recorded an album with Mike Watt, John Dieterich (from Deerhoof), and Tim Barnes for Post-Consumer Records, a new label and studio in Austin, Texas.

Dan: You do a lot of multidisciplinary projects, right?

Thollem: That's right. I regularly work with Martha Colburn, a New York filmmaker. I also work with a dancer named Germaul Barnes.

Dan: What other projects have you been working on?

Thollem: I also have the Bloom Project Duo with Rent Romus, and I have a solo album entitled Gone Beyond Reason To Find One, which came out on Edgetone Records last month. I also have continued touring, among other things I'm probably forgetting at the moment.

     You can subscribe to the "Experimental Arts Examiner" article series by clicking on the "subscribe" button under this article's title.