ignas te Wiel

Ignas te Wiel(17 may 1969,Rotterdam, the Netherlands)started his music education at the early age of four.Being the son of a violin player he picked up the violin himself at age six and studied this instrument for eight years. His father played both jazz and gypsy music thereby inducing an interest in music from other cultures,an interest which keeps inspiring his playing style till present day. This inspiration made him an autodidact on several instruments as well as singing techniques. In the nineties he had private lessons for cuban style/pop conga playing with Nippy Noya and west african drumming with Willem Jansen. Nowadays he studies Dholak(indian hand drum) with Soerej Sewlal. Since 1995 he has been active as a professional percussionist/vocalist,both in the Netherlands and abroad and appeared at festivals like the north sea jazz festival,the crossing border festival,festival mundial and the Amsterdam dance event. Ignas fuses african and indian grooves with middle eastern and jazz/fusion patterns bending them to the demands of the group he’s playing with using his sense for timing and colour meanwhile creating soundscapes using his voice,small percussion and shakuhachi(japanese bamboo flute)thus creating a world that sometimes sound familiar and at other times otherworldly.