Director of Jazzaar Festival

Born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and as a member of the 80’s Malaysian pop duo ‘Cenderawasih’ (EMI) I enjoyed making a living as a musician before I attended and graduated from Berklee College of Music ’88 (Boston, USA).

I am a proponent of learning by observing that also implies imitating and modelling excellence quite similar to Albert Bandura’s Model Learning theory. It’s a phenomenal learning method that builds intrinsic motivation and confidence. Observing keenly with interest how someone you admire successfully achieves a particular task or feat and then achieving the same when you spontaneously imitate the actions! This is in a gist what ‘Bandstand Learning with Role Models’ creates a setting for. When raw young talents observe the masters execute some impressive instrumental feats they imitate it and are then motivated upon the success of their achievement to stay on course. Besides the steep technical learning curve these emerging talents also get a good reality check about the life of a working musician through social interactions with their mentors.

The project expanded over the years to what is now called ‘Jazzaar Festival‘. As one of the founders of this educational program I am very grateful for the support we have received over these years to build it to this stage. It is my hope that more people would see the value of this platform and share in these aspirations of mine:

– To ensure that today’s young talents will one day pass on the torch of excellence as role models to younger generations of musicians in Switzerland.

– To maintain a solid bridge into the international music industry where our emerging talents may thrive as musicians.

Besides running Jazzaar, I’m also passionate about conveying some highly effective vocal techniques for multi-stylistic performances to singers in a private setting.