Stefan Hristov bands

About Stefan Hristov bands

Stefan Hristov started studying Jazz Drums with Ivan Enev (White, Green and Reds, Bulgaria) in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

He got his Bachelor in Performing Arts (2006), studying drum set with Ralph Peterson Jr. and Owen Hart Jr. at the Prince Claus Conservatoire in Groningen (NL) within the jazz program “New York Comes to Groningen”. In 2003 Stefan was awarded the Harten Aas Trofee, category jazz, a prize given by Holland Casino supporting young talented students and allowing Stefan to study with Miles Davis’ drummer Jimmy Cobb in New York in 2003.

In 2011, Stefan obtained his Master in Performing Arts (2011) from Codarts Conservatoire in Rotterdam (NL), where he studied tabla and drumset at the World Music Department, specializing in North Indian Classical Music with Ted de Jong (tabla). For this study program his was awarded with the prestigious Huygens Scholarship from the Dutch Government, awarded to excellent students. In the fall of 2010 Stefan travelled to Mumbai (India) to follow private lessons with the tabla maestro Pandit Yogesh Samsi, with a special grant from Codarts Conservatoire.

Stefan plays with a variety of projects and musicians in the field of World Music and Jazz. He is interested in the cross-over between jazz and North Indian classical music. This led him to develop a method for applying Indian tabla language (tala and compositions) on the drum set, the ‘Functionality Method’. Besides teaching and performing, Stefan is currently working on the development of his book ‘Tala Swings: The Functionality Method’ and gives workshops for drummers on the North Indian Rhythm system (tala).

He shares:

As a musician, I am interested in the power of music as a form of communication. With that, I mean all forms of music: my grandfather playing the kaval in the mountains, the communication of African slaves on the cotton fields in North America or the Indian devotional classical music-communication with the Gods.

As a drummer, exploring the language of rhythm in depth, through jazz, and with the background of the Bulgarian vocabulary of odd rhythms, eventually I found my path to the North Indian classical music where the rhythm literally has a language! I discovered its inheritance and richness of eloquence that opened to me a world of ancient knowledge in arts and aesthetics.

Through jazz drumming I went down to the roots of rhythm as a language and after discovering the tabla bol of North Indian classical music, my goals is to twine that language with the rhythmical roots of jazz.