| Drummer Keith Copeland, son of trumpeter
Ray Copeland, is from New York City, where he was born on April 18, 1946. He began
taking drum lessons at the age of ten and acquired his union card five years later.
In 1967, after a four-year spell in the US Air Force, Copeland began studying
drums at Berklee College in Boston and then, in 1975, began a three-year spell
teaching at the College. Since then he has won an impressive international reputation
as a drummer, composer, arranger and clinician. His musical associates over the
past 20 years have included George Russell, Johnny Griffin, the Heath Brothers,
Hank Jones, Milt Jackson, Stan Getz, Phil Woods, Stéphane Grappelli, Slide
Hampton, Kenny Barron and Roger Kellaway. In 1992 Copeland was appointed professor
of jazz percussion at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. His first book,
Creative Coordination for the Performing Drummer is published by Carl Fischer. | |
| Fedor Ruskuc was born in 1980 in Novi
Sad, Yugoslavia. He learned Violin at primary music school (in the class of Professor
Nina Nikolov) and Contrabass at "Isidor Bajic" Music High School in
the class of Professor Goran Kerleta. From 1999 he studied Jazz at the Academy
of Music in Graz in the class of Professor Wayne Darling, where he graduated in
2002. Since July 2002 he has lived and studied in Cologne (at the College for
Music) in the class of Professor Diter Manderscheid. He received numerous awards
in republic and state competitions of Yugoslav music schools (in 1996 and 1998).
Since 1999 he has performed regularly at the Novi Sad Old Gold Jazz Festival with
the Adam Klem Band. He has also performed with various bands in Croatia, Slovakia
and Austria, as well as with his professors from the Academy of Graz (Peter Kunsek
and Andre Jeancartier). In 2002 he was an Associate at the Master School in Vrnjacka
Banja conducted by Stjepko Gut. He has participated in the workshops of Joe Labarbera,
Niels H.O. Pedersen, Barre Phillips, Claudio Roditi and others. | |
