Martin Verdonk

Born in 1959 on Curaçao , Dutch Antilles.
Studied at the Rotterdam conservatory and at the Conjunto Folklorico Nacional de Cuba.
His teachers were Mario Jaurequi, Roberto Vizcaino and Giovanni Hidalgo.
Main influences for pop-percussion were Paulinho da Costa, Luis Conte, Lenny Castro and especially Ralph McDonald.

Martin's interest in music started at an early age growing up in a very musical family of drummers and singers. He recalls playing drums in front of a mirror to the music of the Spencer Davis hit "Keep on running" at age nine.
Who could have imagined back than, that Martin would be touring and playing that same song all over the world with legendary Steve Winwood thirty years later.

The turning point of Martin's career was when he was asked to join Santana's percussion-section, Raul Rekow and Orestes Vilato, who started the band Congarilla. Together they have toured all over Europe between 1986 and 1989. In 1990 Martin was asked to join the band Lois Lane for a tour as support act for Prince. While playing in Stockholm Prince asked Martin to sit in with him that night. More nights followed including 4 times at the Wembley Arena in London.

The following years Martin has been highly in demand for his talent to tastfully mix all possible styles.
Today Martin is known to be one of Europe's most versitale players, covering pop, rock, jazz, latin, fusion, r&b, world music, new age and played with Donna Summer, En Vogue, Son by Four, Lionel Richie, James Taylor and Steve Winwood amongst others.

Martin teaches at the World Music Dept. of the Rotterdam conservatory. In 1995 he received the award for 'outstanding service to Jazz education' in Los Angeles. The readers of the Dutch drum magazine 'Slagwerkkrant' choose Martin several times as best percussionist.
He is also a well known clinician and a very popular "teambuilder" and "percussion-motivator"
Martin recorded two CD's : Tribal Fusion and Old School New Sound.