WRM to experience Worlds In A Life Saturday
Twenty-seven years ago, in his downtown San Jose´ garden, Thollem met angela. From birth, Thollem was immersed in all things music due to his pianist parents. as a bilingual teacher in inner city schools, angela has always maintained a variety of artistic practices.
“I think we more or less realized simultaneously that we should merge our respective work. I remember that it started to dawn on me, that her photos and videos revealed parts of places that I wasn’t aware of, little scenes that were fascinating and inspiring,” Thollem Mcdonas said. “I started hearing music to her work and it just went from there.”
For around the last decade Thollem and angela C Villa, known as acvilla, have traveled throughout the United States and Europe combining their artistic abilities to create unique performances.
“My music is a conversation with this moment in time. It’s genuinely adventurous and inspired by many different traditions. I think it is genuine music of high quality,” said Thollem. “at the very least this is my intention!”
Growing up in the San Fransisco Bay area, Thollem was exposed to a wide variety of cultures each with its own type of music and cultural significance.
“I think it was just always natural for me to be curious and expand my perspective and integrate it into my own musical background, which was as a classical pianist,” he said.
For about the last 12 years, angela has been using cameras as her medium. That includes digital, video, and a drone.
as they travel from performance to performance, angela captures the things and scenery along the way that catches her attention.
“Thollem says that he started to see where we’d been through my work as if he hadn’t been in the same place. Many things and moments catch my eye. a key part of my work is being on the road; I find most every situation visually intriguing,” she said.
angela states that she’s been investigating contextualizations since 2017. For those that might not know, contextualization is a technique that involves layering of visuals projected upon surfaces that emphasize the underlying theme.
“The topics dive into on-going issues and concerns that face this continent and the world at large,” says angela. “The visuals can serve to accentuate a place that people have ceased to see. While my tools are digital cameras and a projector, my approach is old school; everything is created in real time.”
Traveling as much as the duo does, they get to meet and perform with a plethora of artists. They also get to discover and explore all types of communities.
“We do a lot of documenting of the work of other artists and communities as we travel. The Now Of Us focused on documenting murals with a message which followed Who are US in 2016 documenting the U.S. throughout all of the lower 48 states,” Thollem said.
Even though they travel to different places and meet different people, Thollem doesn’t see the differences in humanity.
“I often think people share more commonalities than differences. The nuances of our lives can get magnified in unnatural ways as well. We find often the most memorable experiences aren’t the big moments, and memory is such a creative process in itself. Worlds In a Life shares many of these moments, so the best way
to know is to come experience it with us,” he said.
Thollem’s Astral Traveling Sessions was released Feb. 26 and is a blend of genres. The Bandcamp site, https:// thollemsastraltravelingsessions.bandcamp.com, describes it as “Jazz? Experimental? New Music? Noise? classical contemporary? Drone? Improvised Music? It’s none of the above and all of the above - usually at the same time.”
When asked what he was proud about the project, Thollem said that he was most proud of the way the label, mastering engineer, and himself gotten along so well and how smoothly the project had progressed.
“We’re now in the 10th month of a 12-month series that is a pretty huge undertaking. None of us ever even met in person when we all decided to commit to this. That in itself is remarkable to me. This started during the pandemic when I realize I had a lot of time on my hands because I couldn’t tour, and I had all these recordings that had been made along my tours in collaboration with what turned out to be 70 different musicians throughout the U.S., canada, Italy, and Greece,” he said.
Their tour brings them to the Wild Rose Moon in historic downtown Plymouth on Saturday. They’ll be performing a live multimedia performance called Worlds In A Life. It will pair Thollem’s keyboard inventions with projections of Acvilla’s miniature films. It is advertised as “eternity filtered through two perpetually traveling artists at the center of a world on the edge.”
“Through Worlds In A Life, we are always in search of a balance between entertainment and art that we feel makes it both welcoming and thought-provoking for the audiences. Our work is an opportunity to further awaken to your own experiences through the way we express ours,” Angela said.
They take the phrase “perpetually traveling artists” seriously. After Plymouth, they will be traveling to Detroit and then to Europe where Thollem will have three months of concerts, workshops, and residencies. “Angela will be going with me to gather experiences both personally and through her various cameras. I’ve got concerts in Holland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Portugal. This is all covid allowing of course, but so far so good…” said Thollem.
The show is at 8 p.m. and tickets can be purchased at www.wildrosemoon. com, A.S.K. for Flowers, and eventbrite.com. Wild Rose Moon does require that masks covering the nose and the mouth must be worn at all times while inside (unless eating and drinking).
For more information about Thollem, visit www. thollemsastraltravelingsessions.bandcamp.com and www.thollem.com/ worldsinalife.
For more information about Acvilla, visit http://acvillavisions.com.