Thollem McDonas - Infinite-Sum Game

"Infinite-Sum Game is a curated selection of my solo piano performance in Palermo on May 13th, 2023, at Sala Perriera in the Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa. I have the deepest gratitude first and foremost to Lelio Giannetto and Valeria, as well as Gabri, Luca, Yuki, Angela, Curva Minore, SIO, and the greater Sicilian musical community. It's a great honor to have been embraced by the community in Palermo, to be able to spend so much time there, and to collaborate with so many artists who have become dear friends. And I am profoundly honored to be a participant in the historic, and continuing, legacy of ESP-Disk'.

My approach to the piano is unique, based on my lifelong relationship with the instrument. It is also universal, born out of the context of everything and everyone who came before and during. As a pianist I have been inspired and influenced in equal measure by Scriabin, Monk, Scarlatti, Nina Simone, George Antheil, Rubén González, Prokofiev, Cecil Taylor, Henry Cowell, Debussy, Alicia de Larrocha, Professor Longhair, David Tudor, Glenn Gould, John Cage, Art Tatum, and more, including my contemporaries.

Musically, my influences and inspirations range widely, and sometimes wildly, from my classical piano training, the cultural diversity of the SF Bay Area, West Coast punk rock, Kuumbwa and Eulipia Jazz Clubs, and The Cabrillo Music Festival to my piano-playing parents, dedicated teachers, my itinerant life, and most importantly, all the artists I've had the privilege to collaborate with over the years. As a result, my music is genre-bending, code-switching, omni-idiomatic, and intersectional. Philosophically, this album expresses the culmination, up to now, of my life’s experiences in dialogue with the universe and my fellow human beings. Some of these sounds and ideas can be heard on previous albums of mine, though each time is a unique variation and context. That said, I see this recording as the ultimate, and final, document of these works."

“Thollem is a modern griot who has absorbed sounds from every place he has visited.”
– William Parker, from Conversations II (Rogue Art)