Rodrigo Reijers

Rodrigo Reijers was born in 1975, in a little village in the countryside of Holland called Loo, descending from a family of remigrants from Brazil (that explains the undutch surname). At the age of 20 he became more serious about music, and replaced his selfmade one-string-bass with an actual contrabass, and started his musical training. Initialy playing folk, blues and rock music, Rodrigo soon discovered Jazz and other improvised music. His enthousiasm and natural feel for music led him to many experiences in very different styles and settings, ranging from big band work to experimental works with dancers and actors, contemporary composed music to jazz, and travelling all over the world. In 2006 Rodrigo gets his Master degree from the conservatory of the Hague, as a student of Hein van de Geyn, Frans van der Hoeven, Uli Glaszman, and Roelof Meijer. Here he got the chance to work with many great musicians such as John Ruocco, Michael Brecker, Slide Hampton and Kurt Rosenwinkel. In this period he worked with many musicians such as Tutu Pouane, Vera Westera, Mikkel Peterson, Vadim Neselovskyi, Eef Albers, Flin van Hemmen, Quentin Sirjaq, Yonga Sun, Joachim Badenhorst, Cyrille Oswald, Jure Pukl, the list is endless. Also he was involved in the preparation of the recently published bass method ' Comprehensive Bassmethod' by Hein van de Geyn. In 2006 Rodrigo joined the 'Workshop for jazz and improvised music' in Banff, Canada, led by Dave Douglas. In the same year he travelled to Brasil to work in a social project in a 'favella'. In 2007, Rodrigo went to New York to continue his mission to learn about and experience music and life. Now he lives in Amsterdam, playing with his band Big Grin, with guitarist Guillermo Celano an drummer Flin van Hemmen(check out that music!), the Amsterdam Jazz Orchestra (big band), Melao (thijs Cuppens world music project), and with the Babak Maddah group(Persian music) and various ad hoc projects. Besides playing Rodrigo also teaches music, and is a yoga enthousiast, studying the Bikram sequence.