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Our
Sales Manager, Selwyn Solomon, is the other South African
contingent at Drum Café California. Born in South Africa, Selwyn
moved to the United States in 1984 and brought his expertise in retail
music stores with him. With his brother, he opened up a successful Video
and Music store on the west side of Los Angeles called VideoRave. After
five years Selwyn moved onto the publicity end of the music industry
and became an independent publicist with The Press Network, doing publicity
and marketing for such world musicians as Johnny Clegg and Juluka, Jai
Uttal and Ani DiFranco. He also worked with successful record labels,
Putumayo World Music, Rhythm Safari and Watermelon Records. Selwyn finally
has found the bridge that brings his love for music and business together,
in the Drum Café. |
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Born in Roswell, New Mexico, Elisa studied music on a full music scholarship at Texas Tech University, graduated cum laude from Arizona State University and earned a Juris Doctorate degree from Creighton University. Elisa has been facilitating rhythm circles and drumming events, for all age groups, for over 10 years. She has facilitated workshops for community colleges and universities, and retreats and has organized and performed with drumming ensembles and dance troupes for special events and large festivals. Elisa has drummed for several Middle Eastern and tribal dance performance groups and was the musical director for Circadian Rhythm and the Lotus Dancers, a performance art and percussion ensemble of women. Elisa has studied Japanese Taiko and Middle Eastern drumming and has most seriously studied African drumming. She first studied with Abdoulaye Sylla, Abou Sylla, and Alisco Diabate, drumming artists with Ballet Africans of Guinea, West Africa. Since 2001, she has been a student of Monette Marino, director of Tam Tam Mandingue San Diego School of Percussion, founded by Mamady Keita of Guinea, West Africa. Elisa
performs with several drumming ensembles and plays for local African
dance classes. She practices law in San Diego, California. |
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Gail Olson began studying West African drumming in 2001 with Omar Moore of San Diego's World Beat Center. Since 2002, she has studied with Monette Marino and Raymond Burkett of Tam Tam Mandingue San Diego, a school founded by master drummer Mamady Keita that is dedicated to preserving, teaching, and sharing the music and culture of Guinea, West Africa, and of the Mandingue people. A
former modern dancer with Issacs, McCaleb & Dancers, Gail received
a degree in journalism and a minor in dance from San Diego State University
in 1986 and has many years' experience choreographing, performing, and
teaching both classical ballet and modern dance. Her love of dance and
the performing arts is what drew her to the music of West Africa and
its tremendous power to unite whole communities on a creative, joyful,
and spiritual level. |
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Frank Lazzaro started playing drum set at age 10, and has studied African and Middle-Eastern drumming for over 15 years. His most notable teachers have been Babatunde Olatunji, Lamine Dibo Camara, and most recently Mamady Keita. He has also had training with the Rhythm for Life Foundation, which he practiced in his past work at mental health centers. Frank
currently teaches drumming at the World Beat Center in San Diego, drums
for weekly African dance classes, and leads the monthly Encinitas Community
Drum Circle. He also performs as lead drummer for the world fusion groups
Damaru and Middle-Earth. Frank's motto is simple; "Happiness Is
Drumming". |
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Melinda
Rodriguez
has been passionately drumming and facilitating drumming events for
more than 7 years during her study of West African, Native American
and Middle Eastern percussion. She is a Professional Drum Circle Facilitator
and has trained with world-renowned industry Masters such as Arthur
Hull and Mamady Keita at the Tam Tam Mandingue, school of West African
Drumming. She facilitates exceedingly popular drum classes and drum
circles in Orange County and has become known as the “Drum Diva”
in her community. |
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Matthew
"Matt" J. Fitzgerald
An Orange County, CA native, Matt has been playing music now for over
15 years. He was a principle member of the award winning Mission Viejo
High School Drumline and later attended California State University,
Long Beach, where received his Bachelor's Degree in Music (2004), with
an emphasis in percussion. It was at Long Beach where Matt had the privilege
of studying world music and dance under the guidance of Dr. Michael
Carney, Brad Dutz, Mark Lamson, Kevin O'Sullivan, Anthony Douglass,
and Yeko Ladzepko-Cole. During his studies, Matt twice traveled to Salvador,
Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, Brasil to study with the masters of Brasilian
drumming, Olodum, Ile
Aiye, Bale Foklorico da Bahia and Grande Rio Escola de Samba.
Since graduating, he continues to travel the globe, teach private lessons/master
classes and has recently opened up his own audio recording company,
Pharmakos Sound, Inc. Matt enjoys all forms of drumming for, "Drumming
is a way in which we can come together and speak to one another, even
if we don't share a common language. With drums in our hands, we become
one voice…not many." |
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Giavanni
holds masters
degrees in Public Health and Policy Analysis in addition to a B.S. in
Biology. It was during her undergraduate tenure at Florida Agricultural
and Mechanical University that Giavanni began performing after being
introduced to West African Drum and Dance. An infectious and exiting
performer, Giavanni’s passion and love for West In addition to dancing and drumming, Giavanni has provided grant writing, budget administration, logistics detail, promotions, public relations, and language translation/interpretation services to the artist community since 2000. Most recently, Giavanni has been asked to coordinate West African Drum and Dance Camps in Senegal and Japan. In past years she has successfully written for grants for performing arts groups to participate in international festivals in Brazil and Cuba, promoted various traditional West African groups on the Black College Circuit and in and around Los Angeles. Giavanni strives
to Make
the Arts Accessible to All! |
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Anna
Christmas is
delighted to be playing and dancing and playing drums with the Drum
Cafe team. She has been drumming and dancing for 20 years and has studied
with Nzingha Camara, Koca Sale Dioubate, Kemoko Sano and other masters
of many forms of dance and music . She is also a member of Kouman Kele,
Africabok and L'Esprit d'Afrique dance companies. |
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Emeka M. Simmons (dancer) This Florida native began his dance career in 1999 on the campus of UCLA. The UCLA African Arts Ensemble's west African dance troupe JOOBA, was the genesis of a his dance performance career. He fell in love with performing and African dance and drumming arts. In doing so, he began a journey that followed the west and central Africans across the Atlantic to the new world; first stop, Cuba. Omo Ashe, an Afro-Cuban performance Ensemble brought Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin culture to the center of his artistic focus from 1999-2001. In 2001 he was asked to join N'zingha Camara's west African dance company Le Ballet Kouman Kele, which he is still a principal dancer for. Continuing the journey further into African diasporic arts brought Emeka to Capoeira de Angola where he studied and performed with Pastina's Garden of Capoeira de Angola from 2000-2002. Finding Afro-Brazilian
culture fascinating, he studied and performed with two Brazilian dance
companies Viver Brazil in 2003 and Ballet Folklorico do Brazil in 2004.
Emeka now is a principal dancer with Contra Tiempo and is the founder
and director of L'Espirit d'Afrique a Pan-African performance art ensemble. |
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