Wednesday, September 19, 2012

 
“PLAY” - NEW AND IMPROVED IMPROV MASTER PIANIST/COMPROVISER THOLLEM McDONAS
with regional masters of free improvisation

Sat., Sept. 22nd, 7:30 pm
Homewood Community Center - CDF
1715 27th Ct. South, Homewood AL
$10/$5 students (sliding scale) kids free
Homewood, AL - On Saturday the 22nd, YOU will be treated to the music of master comproviser Thollem McDonas. In addition to his solo exposition “Thollem Sworld”, he will be joined by a host of diverse artists from Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, master improvisers of our region.
Also on the show, Diane McNaron (with Michael King), presenting a ‘preview’ performance of her upcoming show, “Angel” a Marlene Dietrich retrospective(details: www.dianemcnaron.com) and Homewood High School’s Caroline Karson featured student soloist, performing some of the darker Chopin Waltzes.

The evening will openwith improvisations on traditional Balanese gamelan, Tibetan Bells, Middle Eastern rebab and Japanese Shakuhachi. Also appearing in quartet with Thollem will be dancer Stella Nystrom, Birmingham guitarist Davey Williams, cellist Craig Hultgren and saxophonist Andrew DeWar. As if this is not special enough, a final soirée is planned, lead by the omni-instrumentalist Hunter Bell, multi-instrumentalist Si Reasoning, saxophonist Holland Hopson and violist LaDonna Smith who will be inviting other artists to join in a collective collaborative piece to close the evening.

But what about the master pianist/composer/improviser known world-wide? Thollem McDonas has been traveling perpetually these past six years, as a soloist and also as a collaborator with artists Pauline Oliveros, Nels Cline, William Parker, Mike Watt, and the late Italian master contrabassist Stefano Scodanibbio among many more. Signal To Noise describes his music like a "supercollider centrifuge of innumerable disasters, a churning black caldera bespattered with beautiful madness. It seems beyond the capacity of one human being to contain so much densely-packed creative energy". Terry Riley notes that Thollem ”inhabits a world uniquely his own, rhythmically, harmonically and formally. A true original.”Asked about his ever-diverse music, Thollem observes, “I make music that I hope stimulates the mind and the body, that’s intellectual and sexy and meditative and ferocious and poetic and athletic and revolutionary and spiritual and political and loving and that will shake people awake, starting with me first.”


Facebook invite and info here: http://www.facebook.com/events/468353943204124/

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