hello friends,

we proudly announce the first german cajon festival at the comprehensive school horn in hamburg, germany!

the event will take place on the 15th of november 2008 at: gesamtschule horn, snitgerreihe 2 in 22111 hamburg.

this school has a very innovative and groundbreaking music department under the direction of arend schmidt-landmeier, jens everling and nis nöhring.

they decided, together with oliver böttger, to originate the first cajon festival which will feature various cajon manufacturers and their hottest instruments. every company will have at least one artist at the venue for several workshops and shows during the event.

meinl percussion will be represented by stephan maass + a special guest!

you will also find further information at: http://www.cajonmania.de/ - a very interesting page, hosted by oliver mann.

we'll keep you posted with the news!

mario

hi folks,

just to remind you: today the samba festival in coburg will start – and meinl percussion will take part. if you think about going there and if you will have time just stop by at our booth t04 close to the theaterplatz, and enter the contest “faces of percussion” or test some of our samba instruments … think we will have a lot of fun the next three days … ;-)

hope to see you at our booth

helge

Hi folks,

maybe you’ve already noticed all the new and wonderful bongo videos in our community made by lerryns hernandez from caracas / venezuela. we watched those great videos day by day and decided to get in contact with him … to make a long story short –lerryns hernandez is now endorsed by Meinl percussion.

you want to know a little bit more about bongo hero lerryns ? this is what lerryns told us:

“My name is Lerryns Hernández and I´m a drummer and percussionist. Although percussionist is a word that covers a wide range of skills, in my particular case, besides drums, I play the bongo, conga, cymbal, darbouka and gipsy box. I began this musical journey more than twenty years ago, when my father gave me my first drum set for my eighteenth birthday. From then on, everything was about playing. I left my University studies and dived in musical issues. I took individual lesson for almost two years with a very prestigious professor that lives here in my birth town of Caracas. From then until now, I have become a self-taught musician with more than 20 records in diverse genres as session drummer, not to mention TV commercials, movie and soap opera soundtracks.

With the percussion, the story has been, well, quite different. The bongo was the first percussion instrument I held in my hands....long before I ever dreamt with playing drums, way back when I was in High School. A friend of mine taught me some lessons of the basic “hammer” beat and from then on I made my way watching other people play and inspire me. It was never an instrument that I played with my colleagues in concerts and that kind of stuff, it was more the kind of instrument that I played in parties and informal jam sessions covering a wide range of musical selections, from latin to pop, rock, Venezuelan traditional, etc. I just couldn´t stand there without playing when my buddies befriended hot chics by strumming their guitars while I remained in silence with my bongo..So I had to, by all means, be able to accompany whatever music they played in order to be there...With this idea in mind, last year, in November, I decided to experiment a little, just as I once did 20 years ago, but with the maturity that I have achieved today, as far as I believe. So, it is in this sense that The Bongo Projecct was born.”

stay tuned and you will get more details about lerryns’ bongo project ;-)

keep on drumming

helge

hello percussion friends,

how are you doing these days?

first of all, i want to say thank you to everybody who sent us some pictures for our faces of percussion project. we have already many great images for the next catalog, but please, keep going - the more the better :)

- - -

last week, my fellow bernie and i went to laigueglia in order to meet some business partners and artists.

laigueglia is a fabulous little village at the mediterranean sea. once a year they celebrate a big percussion/jazz festival over there (percfest) where all italian musicians come together to hang out, have a good time, and jam. you'd find little stages all over the place - it's just amazing!

i've met with some great italian artists, talked about different product ideas, and took the opportunity to shoot some photos for our next catalog.

btw. we've just worked out the design of our 2009 book of percussion... it will be mind-blowing. without being exaggerating! but you'll see it yourself, in about seven month... :-)

cheers,
mario

Howdy,

"Howdy" is the southern U.S. greeting that many will receive when they show up at the Summer NAMM Show, 2008, here in Meinl USA's hometown of Nashville, Tennessee starting tomorrow, Friday, June 20, 2008. The show is happening at the Nashville Convention Center in the historic lower Broadway District of of Nashville and it runs through Sunday, June 22.

This is a great chance for all of the music instrument manufacturers who have a booth at the trade show, to meet with retailers from across the USA and discuss business and get a little bit of face time in.

Meinl will be there at booth #608. While the show is closed to the public, any of ya'll out there reading who are on your way, please stop by and say hello We'd love to see you.

 - Chris

Greetings One and All,

I\\\'m very happy to let everyone know that percussionist Taku Hirano has joined the Meinl Percussion Family.

Taku, based in the Los Angeles, California area, has quite an impressive resume. Along with international tours with Lionel Richie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsay Buckingham, and Isaac Hayes, Taku holds steady gigs with Fleetwood Mac and Bette Midler among others. Taku also has been on a number of major motion picture and television soundtracks and scores. Several of these recordings have won Grammy, Emmy, and American Music Awards. In addition to all of this, Taku has performed with the likes of Stevie Wonder, LeAnn Rimes, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Mary J. Blige, Patti Labelle, Barry Manilow, Kenny Loggins, Chaka Kahn, The Neville Brothers, Don Henley, Joe Zawinul, Cece Winans, Gary Burton, and Yolanda Adams...just to name a few.

Currently, Taku is performing with Bette Midler in her Las Vegas show, "The Showgirl Must Go On" at Caesar's Palace. In fact, if you are able, tune into The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this Friday, June 20th, as Taku will be performing with Bette Midler.

Taku just won the 2007 DRUM! Magazine Drummie Awards for "Percussion Rising Star" and Runner Up for the "Rock/Pop Percussionist" category.

To learn more about this serious talent, head to www.takuhirano.com and www.myspace.com/takuhirano .

Welcome Taku!!!

 - Chris

Hey there,

I just uploaded the first Meinl Percussion product videos about cajons and djembes on meinlpercussion.com.

You can find them in our community, on their respective product pages and in our tips&tricks section. I will finish conga, bongo and many more in the next few days and weeks.

I want to thank Stephan Maass, who played the instruments for the videos, and Bill Saragosa, who did the voice recording with me.


Because of a request in the last days and since Bill is in the house today, we filmed a new video "how to set up the meinl percussion professional conga stand" that you can watch below.

Nice weekend ;-)

Armin

Hi folks,

samba festival in coburg :-) everyone who has ever had the pleasure of attending europe's largest samba festival, knows what i am talking about. it is an amazing festival in the heart of europe which will last three days starting on july 11th. special acts from all over the world – especially from brazil – will reinfect thousands of visitors and samba freaks celebrate one of europes biggest samba parties – and meinl percussion will take part. If you think about going there and if you will have time just stop by at our booth t04 close to the “theaterplatz” in coburg, and enter our contest “faces of percussion.” Besides the contest of course you can test some of our samba instruments, or take the chance to make a short video clip of you playing percussion, which can be released on meinlpercussion.com …

if you’ve got questions about percussion related things don’t hesitate to ask our percussion guru mario, who will be at our booth too.

More info about the samba festival coburg 2008 can be found at www.samba-festival.de.

hope to see you at the festival ;-)

Helge

Hi,

I’m Elisa, I’m attending the Realschule in Neustadt/Aisch and I’m in the 9th grade.

This is the 3rd day of my training here. On the first day I had to arrange invoices and bill of deliveries and other things in the import department. Yesterday I was in the accountancy, where I had to do some very interesting things, too. Today, I visited the manufacturing and came into the export department, where I wrote packing lists for shipments all over the world and now I sitting in the marketing department and writing this blog entry J

I’m looking forward to visiting Meinl factory for the next 2 days, because it’s a lot of fun to work with the guys here.

Love,

Elisa

Dear Conga People!

Stunning and gorgeous Gabriell Anwar, who danced Tango with Al Pacino in "Scent Of A Woman" is the female star of USA network's  show "Burn Notice". It is a cool little secret agent show set in Miami. Recent Guests of the show have included Esai Morales of "La Bamba" fame.

Bermudez Triangle musica will be featured on early episodes when the new shows resume on Thursday July 10th.

Check it out!

Have a great Summer!

Peace,

Jorge Bermudez
www.bermudeztriangle.com
www.myspace.com/bermudeztrianglemusic