Martijn Wijma

Martijn Wijma was born 1979 in Nieuwegein. At a very young age he started to drum on everything that came in his way, even the guitars of his father weren’t safe. So his father bought him a pair of bongos. So it was clear that he would become a drummer. When he was 6 years old, he got his first music lessons.When Martijn was eleven he started to follow lessons by Gerard Theunissen. There he learned al the basics for playing conga’s timbales, bongos and small percussion. At the age of 12 he was privileged to meet two of the greatest percussionists of the world: Nicky Merrero and Giovanni Hidalgo. That inspired him to go on with his great passion. During that time he played in several bands as Free and Easy and Easyfreeze. Martijn’s goal was to get in the Conservatorium in Rotterdam. To reach that goal Martijn switched teacher and started to take lesson by Nils Fisher in Rotterdam. Finely he made it, and started his study course in Rotterdam During his course he had lesson from Nils Fisher, Lucas van Merkwijk, Dirk Hauptman, Martin Verdonk, Fred Krens, Fred van Floten and lots of other great teachers. The 27th of mars 2006 he graduated. In November 2006 Martijn was invited to play with the great Laundry Bigband, conducted by Pieter van den Dolder. With the bigband he played two concerts in the Doelen (Rotterdam ) and the Rai (Amsterdam)At the moment Martijn is putting up his own Latinjazz Orchestra. His goal is to go around the Dutch theatres in 2010! More news later!