KEVIN VALENCIO SUWANDHI
Started learning music in general at the age of 9. However specifically begin learning jazz two years later. He then discovered that he would gone deeply into jazz music and started to win several jazz competitions and got rewarded as the best pianist in several events, such as; Udayana Jazz Festival, Jazz Goes to Campus, and etc. Kevin has played in many different festival both as a leader and as a sideman, such as; Jazz Market, Java Jazz Festival, Jak Jazz Festival, Locafore Jazz Festival, Jazz Traffic, Ngayog Jazz Festival, Ubud Village Jazz Festival, and many more. His wide range of taste has driven him into many different project as a sideman from pop, R&B, jazz and latin music, despite his works as a sideman, he has recorded his own debut album since age of 15 and made his latest project.
At the age of 18, he went to New York to study at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music with a scholarship and chance to study with the jazz legends, such as; Fransesca Tanskley, Jean Michel-Pilc, Kevin Hays, Chris Crocco, Ari Hoenig, Billy Harper, and etc. Then has played with: Doug Weiss, Cameron Brown (Art Blakey bass player), Johanes Weidenmueller, Ari Hoenig, Joe Martin.
BERNARD ZULFREDO
An honour graduate in Music from Indonesian Institute of the Arts Yogyakarta, Bernard was a member of Asian Youth Jazz Orchestra, led and co-led by two of the most talented jazz musicians in Japan, Osamu Matsumoto and Mayuko Katakura. He was also mentored by two amazing saxophone players, Osamu Koike (Blue Note Tokyo All-Star Jazz Orchestra), and Takuji Yamada. With the group, he toured to Southeast Asia and Japan. As a passionate musician, Bernard keeps expand his knowledge by attending music camps & workshops taught by International musicians such as Chris Cheek, Kurt Rosenwinkel, etc. He currently reside in Bali and actively performing in Bali’s music scene.
RENO JOSHUA
In middle school, Reno started to make an indie band with his friends. The band had several singles and an EP album by genre rock, easy-core, and pop-punk. During high school, Reno participated in band competitions between interschool and region. They also performed in many events such as bazaar, clothing festival, school festival, etc. Besides, he had another band that was metal, hardcore & metalcore genre and had several singles.
Graduated from high school, he chose music as his career and continued his college at Institut Seni Indonesia Denpasar. Reno began to deepen knowledge of music academically and majored in classical guitar. During his college, he was interested in learning jazz and began performing some jazz gigs in Bali. Reno created a music composition entitled "Chronos" for his final project. It illustrated musical composition that collaborates western and Balinese instruments. After finishing education, Reno started a band with Rock/British genre in Balinese, made an acoustic solo instrumental album, and learns music production.
SANDY WINARTA
Classically trained on piano at age of 6 in the early part of his music education, Sandy Winarta’s talents were soon discovered through the age of 17 when he got acquainted with the drums. Sandy pursuing music at the Australian Institute of Music, Sydney (Australia) in 2000. Upon graduation with a Bachelor in Music, Sandy proceeded to return to Indonesia and began professional work as a session and recording musician. He has been seen on sets of Indonesian Idol and Asian Show, performed with Balawan Trio in Quebec Music Festival (2007, Canada), and across continents throughout China, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam and most recently too in Singapore with multiple Grammy Award Winner Charlie Haden & his Liberation Music Orchestra.
Sandy also involved in educational project of teaching drums specifically jazz drumming through his website Bisadrum.com. And he’s been invited to give workshops at IMI, IMDI, Farabi, etc. Moving across festivals, Sandy has been a regular at regional events such as the Jakjazz Festival, Java Jazz Festival, Kuala Lumpur International Jazz Festival, Ambon Jazz Festival, Mosaic Music Festival, Jazz Traffic Festival and has worked collaborations with many artistes such as Sadao Watanabe, Steven Thornton, Roger Burns, Andy Suzuki, Indra Lesmana, Barry Likumahuwa, to name a few.
In December 2011, with his trio, LLW, they performed at Blue Note, Tokyo. And later in June 2012, he performed again at Blue Note, Tokyo with Everette Harp. It is not too far-fetched to consider Sandy as something of a musical virtuoso. The recognition of this very young drummer had began in recent years, with invitations to perform with the World Peace Orchestra (Java Jazz 2007), Tony Monaco Trio, Everette Harp, Maurice Brown, Oran Etkin, Dwiki Dharmawan, Toninho Horta, and all these with much favorable acclaim. In June 2013, Sandy got invited to participate in MasterJam Fest in Ukraine.
And since September 2014 till April 2015, Sandy got a scholarship to study at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in Manhattan, New York. During this time, he studied with so many legendary jazz musicians such as Reggie Workman (John Coltrane), Joe Martin (Gilad Hekselmann trio, Chris Potter, etc), Amir Ziv (Cyro Baptista, Billy Martin), Arman Donelian (Billy Harper), Charlie Persip (Dizzy Gillespie), Allison Miller (Kenny Baron, Dr. Lonnie Smith, etc), Ben Allison (Steve Cardenas), David Gibson (Count Basie Orchestra).
SINUKSMA
Sinuksma ing Driya is a professional bass player who has very big passion to learn jazz. He finally able to express his eagerness of playing music many years later when he studied musical instrument at Dixie music course. He picked bass as his first instrument. Later on, at 2012, to improve his ability on playing bass, he took some master class with mr Agung Prasetyo, double bass lecturer in ISI music institute at Jogjakarta. Mr Agung then advised him to learn to play double bass, which then rose his interest to play jazz.
Sinuksma has been a regular at regional events such as the Java Jazz Festival, Ubud Village Jazz Festival, Bono Jazz Festival, and many more. He was also performed with Indra Lesmana, one of Indonesia's jazz legend and Aksan Sjuman. He acted as additional player in some of jazz musician's album. On 2020 he founded balijazz.id as a vessel where some of the best jazz musicians can express their freedom of playing. He has gained the trust of big companies to handle their own event. His professionality as a talent manager as well as bass player has been recognized by many musicians.
