Remco Menting
Remco Menting
After studying jazz drums at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, I have played in many different bands as the drummer, of which the jazz trio Kapok
is the most important. With this band we won the Dutch Jazz Award, the European Jazz Award and the Edison Audience Award.
In addition to the many performances at home and abroad, I have always been teaching music. I taught drum lessons both privately and at various music schools. Later I started giving group lessons and workshops in drums and percussion more and more often. I did that in high schools, AZCs, but also in a refugee camp in Palestine.
In 2015 I started the Sysmo percussion group with other musicians. This project was the Amsterdam version of the Sysmo group from Brussels, founded by Augustin de Bellefroid. This percussion group was based on La Bomba de Tiempo, the band of the Argentinian Santiago Vazquez, and was a phenomenon in Belgium.
With a group of 13 professional percussionists we gave 10 performances in Amsterdam. I learned the sign language “Rhythm and Percussion with Signs” developed by Vazquez, and discovered how effective this language could be on stage. I did not think that with such a large group of percussionists you could improvise a performance of 2 hours: because everything was created on the spot, different things happened every time and new magical moments always came by.
Several people from the audience had become so enthusiastic that they wanted to do this themselves. The Sysmito teaching group was therefore established and I became one of the conductors. Before this I took management lessons with Augustin de Bellefroid and followed a master class by Santiago Vazquez. In 2016 I started conducting this group, all based on "Rhythm and Percussion with Signs". This went very well and tasted like more: that is why I developed the 2-hour workshop Pulse, so that I can also teach other groups and companies in this. In this workshop all my knowledge and experience of the past years have come together, with "Rhythm and Percussion with Signs" as the basis.
In addition to the many performances at home and abroad, I have always been teaching music. I taught drum lessons both privately and at various music schools. Later I started giving group lessons and workshops in drums and percussion more and more often. I did that in high schools, AZCs, but also in a refugee camp in Palestine.
In 2015 I started the Sysmo percussion group with other musicians. This project was the Amsterdam version of the Sysmo group from Brussels, founded by Augustin de Bellefroid. This percussion group was based on La Bomba de Tiempo, the band of the Argentinian Santiago Vazquez, and was a phenomenon in Belgium.
With a group of 13 professional percussionists we gave 10 performances in Amsterdam. I learned the sign language “Rhythm and Percussion with Signs” developed by Vazquez, and discovered how effective this language could be on stage. I did not think that with such a large group of percussionists you could improvise a performance of 2 hours: because everything was created on the spot, different things happened every time and new magical moments always came by.
Several people from the audience had become so enthusiastic that they wanted to do this themselves. The Sysmito teaching group was therefore established and I became one of the conductors. Before this I took management lessons with Augustin de Bellefroid and followed a master class by Santiago Vazquez. In 2016 I started conducting this group, all based on "Rhythm and Percussion with Signs". This went very well and tasted like more: that is why I developed the 2-hour workshop Pulse, so that I can also teach other groups and companies in this. In this workshop all my knowledge and experience of the past years have come together, with "Rhythm and Percussion with Signs" as the basis.