Nick Twyman

Originally from Newark in the county of Nottinghamshire, England, and gripped by music earlier than I remember (my Mum says I stood, entranced, for an entire showing of The Sound Of Music when I was three - got over it) I received my first drum set when I was five and commenced drums and piano lessons around the same time. Boarding school tried (and failed) to dampen my enthusiasm for all things musical; I took up the oboe also (a mistake-beautiful instrument in the right hands; ugly in mine), and in 1980 I was accepted at London's famous Guildhall School of Music and Drama, by now developing an interest in jazz. My first professional engagement was on percussion with internationally renowned guitarist John Etheridge (Soft Machine, Stephane Grappelli) and violinist Ric Sanders (Fairport Convention), opening for Ron Carter at the Camden Jazz Festival in 1981, followed by a UK tour, on drums, with John and Ric, keyboardist Dave Bristow and bassist Fred Thelonious Baker. Wishing to study further, I entered the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, USA, graduating in 1985. Shortly after, I relocated to Hiroshima, Japan, becoming involved in the local jazz scene, playing in RnB bands and writing jingles for TV and radio, I moved to Tokyo in 1987, teaching, gigging and recording with keyboardist Shiro Sawa, The Unit-a new age jazz group led by prominent bassist Shunsuke Mizuno, and a trio with Yokohama based pianist Ake Kubota, and Tetsuya Mashine on bass. A highlight of this time was performing at a concert for Nelson Mandela in 1990. Also around this time I became more aware of Brazilian music, and wore out my CD player with the music of artists such as Milton Nascimento, Ivan Lins, Djavan, Hermeto Pascoal and Tom Zé. In 1995, after one earthquake too many, and narrowly avoiding being gassed on the Tokyo subway, I felt more than a tad homesick and returned to the UK, where I began a new career as a session and theatre musician, playing drums and/or percussion in London's West End. Shows include: Miss Saigon, Salad Days, Starlight Express, Sunset Boulevard, Evita, Always, The Edna Everage Show, Kat And The Kings, The Producers and We Will Rock You. I also worked in pantomime, supplying drums, percussion and sound effects for Russ Abbott, Frank Bruno, Hale and Pace, The Chuckle Brothers, Linda Lusardi and others. I also worked extensively in music education at this time, teaching drums and music theory at DrumTech and Thames Valley University in London from 2000-2007. In September 2007 I felt the time was right for something very different, and so moved to Florianópolis in the south of Brasil for a new life and new challenges.