In my early life I was more attracted to discovering my inner word than launching a career in business. I was fascinated by travelling, exploring foreign cultures and discovering life in various communities.
Although I learned to play the classical guitar and the Indian sitar, drumming is something I have always done – everywhere and on everything. I studied it from books and absorbed more as an avid concert goer. My enthusiasm showed my interest and some obvious talent but it also showed my limitations and the need for something to be added.
At the ripe age of thirty-five I was fortunate to find myself attending the Zurich Jazz School where I landed in the qualified hands of Willy Kotoun. He helped me to erase all my bad technical habits and I could start to discover the secrets of the percussive world on a clean, blank slate.
For many years Cuba was my musical Mecca. The opportunity to study with masters like Panga, Betùn and Justo Pelladito was a precious gift from the music god.
At the same time I was involved in singing projects and started to teach in my ‘Feel the Beat’ workshops. I also launched rhythm events with kids and in the business world. This offered me a perfect platform to use my various musical and interpersonal skills and enabled me to follow the call of the drum and pass on its magic.
Adriano Gloor put me in touch with the TaKeTiNa world; Padmakar Gujar introduced me to the art of Indian percussion; due to Arthur Hull’s inspiration I graduated as a ‘Drum Circle Facilitator’, and Markus Maggiori, at his Afro-Percussion-School in Zurich, helped me to dive deeper into the fascinating world of West African rhythms.
For seven years I worked as a health practioners in my own practice until I realized that the medicine that I really needed, and that I could impart to others in a playful way, is music and drumming.
Welcome to this contagious world! Do you feel the beat?