About

The Short Version

Until recently (February 2020) I was a music teacher based in Perth Australia with over 25 years of performance experience.

• Graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium (Jazz Studies/Electric Bass)
• Bassplayer for TJ Eckleberg, Gotham City Horns and Wendy Anggerani
• Accompanied students at Sydney Conservatorium jazz vocal classes 1997 - 2005
• Performed as piano-vocalist in jazz festivals & venues in Australia, Japan, China & Southeast Asia 2000 - 2011
• Piano-accompanist for Bobby Taylor (USA), Gregg Arthur (Australia), Juliet Pang (Singapore), Jasmine Chen (China), Sherly O (Indonesia)
• Participated in vocal workshops by Betty Carter, Mark Murphy & Kurt Elling

For personal reasons, I have since undergone a change of direction away from music, and am now a bookkeeper, property manager and digital mentor at South Perth Learning Centre.

The Long Version

Early Years

My parents parents arrived in Australia from Indonesia in the 1960's as part of the Colombo Plan scholarship programme. Born in Melbourne to a musical family, my father taught me three-chord ukulele songs when I was seven. I had a wandering childhood, living in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Malaysia before the age of 12. I started my first 'jazz band' in 1985, the same year I started studying jazz piano at Forum Musik Jack & Indra Lesmana in Jakarta.

Sydney Start

In Sydney, I majored in jazz electric bass at the Sydney Conservatorium where at the time the jazz department was lead by the late US trumpet master Dick Montz. Soon after graduation, I was a jazz piano accompanist at the Sydney Four Seasons from 2000 to 2005. In this post, I played with and learned from Sydney's top bassplayers and music educators Craig Scott (ex. Joe Henderson, Lee Konitz, Nat Adderly) and Gary Holgate (ex. Randy Brecker, Mark Murphy, Annie Ross), accompanying the likes of Gregg Arthur and Katrina Rettalick. In the education field, I accompanied teachers and students of workshops and masterclasses held at the Sydney Conservatorium by leading jazz vocal educators Pamela Knowles, Joy Yates, and Nicky Crayson.

Working primarily as a singer accompanist, I eventually developed an interest in singing myself, and studied jazz vocals under Kerrie Biddell. I also took part in workshops and masterclasses by US jazz vocalists Betty Carter, Mark Murphy, and Kurt Elling.

Meanwhile, the bass highlights of my 17 years in Sydney were playing in TJ Eckleberg's band alongside Reza Achman, Wendy Anggerani's jazz fusion band Tembang and touring Asia/New Zealand with 9-piece disco covers band Gotham City Horns alongside a rotation of drummers Andrew Massey, Glenn Wilson and Dave Hatch.

Adventures in Asia

In 2005, I left Australia for China as part of Nikki Doll and The Voodoo Blue along with bassist Rowan Lane and drummer Abdoulaye Lefevre for a 6-month engagement in Shanghai and Beijing. After this, I stayed on in Asia and continued touring the region as a piano-vocalist for several years. A highlight of my Asian travels was performing at the 2007 Sapporo Jazz Festival in Japan with Dave Goodman (drums) and Kyo Kitagaki (bass). While abroad, I continued to put my jazz piano accompaniment skills to good use, backing ex. Motown singer Bobby Taylor in Beijing, Shanghai jazz singer Jasmine Chen and Indonesian jazz singer Sherly O.

Perth via Sydney and Asia

Returning to Sydney in 2009, I met the wonderful Singaporean jazz singer-songwriter Juliet Pang at a jazz open mic. We formed the popular ukulele duo Polkadot + Moonbeam and piano duo Mint Street, and were based from 2011 in Singapore, from which we toured Australia, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. Juliet and I married in Singapore in 2013, and in 2016 settled in Perth Australia as music educators, where we shared our extensive music performance experience and expertise with our students.

South Perth Learning Centre

In 2019, undergoing a complete change of direction, I finished a Certificate IV in bookkeeping, and volunteered at the South Perth Learning Centre to hone my bookkeeping chops. They later offered me a casual position as a bookkeeper, a role that in time expanded into Property Management and Digital Mentorship. I have retained my core jazz piano students but am not taking on anymore students for the foreseeable future. You can still catch me performing live with Juliet, mainly in Perth and Singapore but occasionally in Sydney, Taipei and so on and so forth, as Polkadot + Moonbeam or Mo' Mojito (which is essentially Mint Street rebadged).

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