Minco Coenraad

A NEW CD OF SON ASÍ COMING OUT SOON
Hi, my name is Minco Coenraad.I was born on the 7th of April in Leidschendam, a small town near The Hague. At the age of 5 I started playing the violin. When I got to the age of 14 I changed from playing violin to playing bass guitar. At first I started playing rock and pop music. In the year 1998 this changed as I started playing in my first salsa band ¡Puchunga!. In this same year I studied bass guitar at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, focusing more on jazz and Brazilian music. In the year 2000 the band Son Asi was formed of which I became the bass player. It was with this band I started playing more frequently and in this very same band I changed from bass guitar to baby bass and double bass.
In 2004 I went to Cuba for 2 months accompanied by my double bass to take lessons in Santiago de Cuba. This was a very, very inspiring experience as my teacher, Sones de Oriente bass player Pastor (you can read about his teaching skills in the book "looking for la bomba" by Richard Neill), taught me much of the Cuban Son. In the same year Son Asi got invited to play at the Festival de la Trova in Santiago de Cuba so in February 2005 I played five times with Son Asi at the festival which was broadcasted at the national Cuban television (see Son Asi for a report about this trip) . Besides Son Asi I always played in other bands, for example the Cumbia and Vallenato band Cumbaye, of which you can hear the song "Casa en el aire".
Recently I started playing in various other projects. For example with Latin Adventure I recorded live the song "Rumores" in march 2007. You can hear this song on this site as well. With Nicole Philomena I started to play in 2007, the repertoire mostly is Fado from Portugal and Argentinean Chacareras. In April 2008 we will start to perform. Another new project is the latin/ pop band Mixtura of which you can hear the two songs "Don't know why" and "Teardrops" of our demo tape recorded in july 2007. I hope to inform you shortly about the other projects.
Greetz
-Minco-
THE CUBAN PICTURES