Gianluca Baldo - frame drummer

I was born in Verona (Italy) and since 1999 I am living in Barcelona (Spain).
I have been always very close to music, since I was 12 when I stared studying guitar. Over the years I played different percussion instruments without any regular education, since 2004, when thanks to Juan Luis Castaño I discovered frame drums. I have been lucky enough to start studying with Glen Velez , the main reference for what concerns modern frame drumming.
I also studied frame drums techniques with Zohar Fresco , ghatam with Ghatam Suresh , kanjira with Ganesh Kumar , tamburello and tammorra techniques with Paolo Cimmino and Andrea Piccioni , percussions in early music with Pedro Estevan.
My musical preferences are for acoustic jazz, fusion and world music (i.e. Oregon, Ralph Towner as a soloist, Glen Velez and for many great percussionists like Zakir Hussain, Collin Walcott, Trilok Gurtu, Arto Tuncboyaciyan and others, along with classical composers like Ravel, Mahler, Stravinsky , Bartok.
In 2005, togehter with Paolo Cimmino and Andrea Piccioni I founded the Frame Drums Europe association , wth the goal of promote the rich European and Mediterranean frame rums culture. In the 2005 and 2006 we organized the European Frame Drummers Meeting, the first meeting of european frame drummers ever organized.
I recently opened a discussion forum dedicated to percussions in spanish language. It's at http://www.solopercusion.net
I am currently working on the following projects:

From Aphrodite to fusion - which will be presented each month till July 2007 at Teatre Llantiol in Barcelona - is an introduction to frame drums, in which I give some historical notes on these instruments and show some of them (including the playing techniques). There are some solo pieces and at least two invited artists (singers, musicians, actors) with whom I will perform different pieces using frame drums. Resonessence - world/jazz group founded by Frederique Trunk Duo with Cumie Dunio - Cumie is an extraordinary singer and we perform both improvised songs and composed ones. Duo with short-stories teller María José Pedragosa - this project joins short-stories telling and percussions. It's an interesting use of percussions (mainly frame drums of course).

Visit also my art page at MySpace
[I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4 ]