Tomasa Quartet, whom I know since Dias Latinos 2011, honoured Amersfoort with a live gig. I couldn’t miss the (quite rare) opportunity of seeing that.
They rocked the favourite jazz venue of Amersfoort, city café De Observant.
Not much has changed in the past two years, except that they’ve got a new drummer. Elvin Marchena left and Ulas Aksunger took over. But I was pleasantly surprised that they still remember me and even know my name. They wouldn’t expect to see my face there anyway.
In the break an Internet news site asked them for an interview, and they took me along.
The interview didn’t take long. I learned, among other things, that Mathias and Claudia Valenzuela are married and live in Amsterdam, whereas Ulas and the other Claudia are not, but both live in Rotterdam. I’m not sure how often they manage to rehearse with all this.
Claudia the violinist is fronting the band, so she is the one to speak Dutch on stage. Which I appreciate because I’m up to this too.
The guys are playing just as well as before, if not better. I’ve filmed almost all their pieces.
Update. Just found out from the newspaper that Dias Latinos is off this year, first time after 16 years. Because of the crisis and lack for financing. Maybe next year. ■
— world’s fastest URL shortener
Comments