From my first memory, music has enthralled me, from Beatles to Bach and Beethoven, but not as much as from the moment when I first heard the Flamenco guitar, played by my neighbour, Edgar Rumbold. He was playing a beautiful Taranta for his sick wife and I listened in silent admiration. I had never heard the guitar played with such expression and emotion and knew at that moment that that was what I wanted to do. So I told my parents what I had heard and what I wanted to do and begged them for a guitar. They finally agreed and bought me one.
After much persuasion on my mother's part Edgar agreed to take me on as a student and taught me all the fundamentals of the Flamenco guitar. From that moment Flamenco Guitar became my passion, my obsession and the only thing I have ever really wanted to do.
I was so lucky that Edgar's wife, Maria, gave Flamenco dance lessons, two nights a week and Edgar brought me along to learn the fundamentals of dance accompaniment. Some of these evenings turned into Flamenco juergas, going into the night much to the annoyance of my father, being that they were all on school nights.
Then I went on to study Flamenco guitar for many years in England, in Spain at the Centro Flamenco in Cordoba, the Fundación de Flamenca de Jerez with Manolo Sanlucar, and then at the Rotterdam conservatoire with Paco Peña for six years, where I became the first graduate teacher and performer with a Masters in Flamenco guitar, Cum Laude.
At present I predominantly perform as a solo artist.
Besides performing I also teach Flamenco guitar in Amsterdam.
I have developed my own methodology over the past 35 years with excellent results.
