Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/20/2015
8:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Location
Tortuga Gallery
Category(ies)
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$10
- Thollem Mcdonas — piano
- Michel Doneda — soprano saxophone
- Tatsuya Nakatani — percussion, drums
- Mark Weaver — tuba
Originally from Osaka, Japan, Tatsuya Nakatani resides in Easton, PA. He has released over sixty recordings, performing countless solo percussion concerts through years of extensive international touring. Internationally, he has collaborated with hundreds of artists as well as presented masterclasses, workshops and lectures. Nakatani’s musical approach is steeped in the sensibilities of jazz, free improvisation, rock, noise, and experimental music, all the while retaining the sense of space and quiet beauty found in traditional Japanese folk music. His percussion instruments can imitate the sounds of a trumpet, a stringed instrument or an electronic device to the extent that it becomes difficult to recognize the source of the sound. He has devoted himself to a musical aesthetic where rhythm gives way to pulse, often in a way that is not always audible or visible, in currents that incorporate silence and texture. His constant touring fosters the raw and fresh quality in his music, which can only survive through an open willingness to share energy, culture, music and self on a global human scale.
Michel Doneda is an internationally respected soprano saxophone player from Toulouse, France. With over sixty recordings as a leader, he has developed one of the most extensive musical vocabularies. The soprano saxophonist and composer Joe Giardullo observed that “Doneda’s playing begins somewhere deep inside and continues uninterrupted through to the golden metal bell beyond his fingers”. His most frequent recording and performing partners over the years have included singer Bañat Achiary, percussionist Lê Quan Ninh, hurdy-gurdy player Dominique Regef, and bassist Barre Phillips. Doneda is always searching and exploring, looking for new situations and collaborators.
Thollem McDonas was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, rigorously studying the standard classical piano repertoire, composing and improvising since he was a young child and absorbing the myriad of sounds of his culturally diverse upbringing. He’s also a published author about art, politics and his travels in The Anthology of Essays On Deep Listening, Full Moon Magazine (Prague) and First American Art Magazine (New Mexico). He is presently in residency in Northern New Mexico, working on a documentary about art and community from his experiences along his extensive travels and collaborations.
Mark Weaver, virtuosic tuba player, composer and founder of Albuquerque’s UFO Ensemble, interlaces written and spontaneous elements to construct sturdy, expressive compositions capable of bearing the full weight of his collaborators’ expertise. Also a professional architect, he transfers that practice to his musical approach: a properly engineered structure can support a wide range of options. The Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project promotes heritage stewardship and the protection of archaeological features and the environmental and cultural landscape of the Mesa Prieta region of the northern Rio Grande Valley