Nico Dann has been playing drums and percussion for more than 15 years. Born in Amsterdam to musician parents, Nico grew up in Toronto. He began studying piano at age 8 and moved onto the drums at age 13, studying with Toronto’s Dave Patel and world-reknowned jazz drum instructor Jim Blackley. In 2006, Nico graduated from McGill University in Montreal with a Bachelor of Music in Jazz under Chris McCann, Michel Lambert and Remi Bolduc. 2006 also saw Nico attend Canada’s Banff International Workshop on Jazz and Creative Music studying with Dave Douglas, Clarence Penn and Scott Colley among many other notable greats. In 2011 he earned his Masters in Jazz Performance at New York City’s CUNY Queens College under Nasheet Waits, Antonio Hart, and Michael Mossman. Over the years Nico has had the opportunity to perform at various festivals such as the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, the Off Jazz festival in Montreal and the Distillery Jazz Festival in Toronto. As a local composer/arranger and bandleader, Nico has been leading his own groups around Toronto, Montreal and NYC as well as being a prolific sideman. While Nico’s primary output has been in the jazz and improvised-music idiom, he has never confined himself to any one genre or musical-context. Nico made his Contemporary-Classical Music debut playing with violist-father Steven Dann and bassist Joel Quarrington at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre in 2008, playing the music of Peter Lieberson. In 2010 Nico performed the Musical-Theatre compositions of Bram Gielen in Toronto’s Summerworks “Indie Theatre and Arts Festival”. Drumming, Songwriting and Singing with indie-rock band Sister Suvi and with TuNe-YaRdS he has performed all around Canada, the US and the UK at many venues including the Bowery Ballroom in New York City and The Living Arts Center in Philadelphia and at festivals including Montreal’s POP Montreal, Austin’s South by Southwest, England’s Glastonbury and New York’s CMJ festival. As well as being a performer and composer/arranger, Nico has found a love for teaching and has been aiding the development of his students for the past 10 years. Current projects include “Avant-Jazz” group Rhododendron, playing drums and singing in the Alex Mallett Band (“Indie-Banjo/Folk/Country”) and in Indie band Please Dept., studying the Pandeiro, playing second-line brass band music and revisiting the piano as well as teaching and playing music of every size, shape and colour in Brooklyn, NY and abroad.