Sebastiaan de Vries

Sebastiaan has been drumming since he was 14 and has been to West-Africa a lot. He teaches classes and workshops in djembe and dundun with enormous enthusiasm and drive. His classes are playful and challenging; the workshops are aimed at team building and cooperation.
After having worked in journalism and ICT for years, Sebastiaan started Afrika Percussie in 2011. With Afrika Percussie he want to bring African music to the people. To enhance his qualities as a workshop facilitator he did several coaching related courses, like NLP, General Coaching and he attained his teaching qualification in 2017. Drumming is just an awful lot of fun to do and it brings relaxation and pleasure. Sharing this with as many people as possible is the purpose of Afrika Percussie.

Sebastiaan went to West-Afrika eleven times. During his travels he studied with Siaka Koïte, Billy Konate, Arafan Toure, Drissa Koné and Adama Diarra. In the Netherlands he studied with John May from 1998 to 2002, with Souleymane Camara from 2004 to 2009. In 2006 Sebastiaan went to Codarts Summerschool for djembe teachers. From 2007 to 2012 he yearly attended the Manding Foli percussion internships in Brussels. He also studies on a temporary basis with an enormous number of other teachers, amongst whom Mamady Keita, Famadou Konate, Sega Sidibe, Thomas Geuï, Moussé Dramé, Mansa Camio, Oke Sene and Rainer Polak.