ABOUT
Most praised for his unique style and unerring consistency as a drummer, Tuur has developed a highly diversified artistic palette ranging from jazz and latin to African and Brazilian music. He mesmerizes audiences, performing in a deeply charged pace that begets soulful perfection. His love for traveling complemented with opportunities to perform live in various countries continue to expose him to differing styles and rhythms which had initially lead to the development of his signature style and is part of the reason why the powerful, innovative and creative core of his music speaks perfectly to the demands of the new collective music.
Tuur is a highly demanded session- and studio musician and is active as regular drummer with LURA (Cape Vert), ANABELA AYA (Angola), MUNIR HOSSN (Brazil), TEUS NOBEL (Netherlands), ROGIER TELDERMAN TRIO (Netherlands) and more, touring all over the globe. As a composer Tuur released his album “Nebula” in 2018, produced by Munir Hossn with Jorge Pardo as special guest on flute.
Please have a listen HERE
NEBULA
Released in 2018, ‘Nebula’ is a full album dedicated to the vivid dream Tuur had about the universe and his home town.
Full of special and sentimental value for Tuur, the album features Portuguese accordionist João Frade, Brazilian Munir Hossn on bass and acoustic guitar, Belgian Thomas Maasz on the grand piano and Spanish Jorge Pardo, a special guest on the flutes.
EARLY INFLUENCES
Born in 1985 in Duffel, Belgium, music has been a pervasive presence in Tuur’s upbringing, during which his father, passionate for the blues, played the guitar and drums while his mother was immersed in her love for world music. She would take Tuur as a child to an annual world music festival, called Sfinks, where Tuur could admire big names like Ali Farka Touré, Salif Keita, Youssou N’Dour, Baba Maal, Goran Bregovic, Buena Vista Social Club, Rubén Gonzáles… Tuur reminisces about laying on the couch as a child, listening to Miles Davis, Bobby Mc Ferrin, Salif Keita, Paul Simon, Gilberto Gil, Tower of Power, Wayne Shorter, Daniela Mercury, and such varied influences. After hitting improvised paper boxes, mother’s pans and “Fisher Price” drum sets at the age of 3, and later taking over daddy’s drum set on the attic, Tuur’s formal musical journey began at age 8, when his parents subscribed him for classical percussion lessons (class of Nik Govaerts) at the Stedelijk Conservatorium van Mechelen (BE).
STUDIES AND AWARDS
After continuing his studies at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven (BE) and later on Dé Kunsthumaniora in Antwerp (BE), department jazz and pop, Tuur decided to move to The Netherlands to delve more into jazz and world music. During his studies at the Rotterdam Conservatory, Codarts, from 2005, Tuur had classes with Hans van Oosterhout, Joost Kroon, Lucas van Merwijk, Peter Ypma, Owen Hart Jr. and has attended several workshops and masterclasses with some of the world’s finest musicians, such as: Richard Bona, Ernesto Simpson, Joshua Redman, Horacio “el negro” Hernandez, Giovanni Hidalgo, Ed Soph, Randy Brecker, Dave Liebmann, Dave Valentine, Cyro Baptista, Nosso Trio, Kiko Freitas and many more. On March the 22nd 2009, Tuur got awarded with the Erasmus Jazz Price.
EARLY GIGS AND PROJECTS
Tuur had prospered rapidly as a young musician and had already began playing concerts at the young age of fifteen performing abroad with a few of his bands, such as his percussion duo, in Sweden, Denmark and Germany. During his studies at Codarts, Tuur started to find his place in the global music scene and started touring quite soon with diverse bands, invited by a Dutch jazz saxophonist Ben van den Dungen: State of Monc, Cameroonian singer Ntjam Rosie and Mozambican singer Neco Novellas. He attended major music festivals like Java Jazz Festival in Jakarta, Indonesia, Ollin Kan Festival in Mexico City, Bangkok Jazz in Bangkok, Thailand, Shanghai Jazz Festival in Shanghai, China, various Sesc music festivals in Brazil, North Sea Jazz Festival (since 2009-2018 every year) in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Jazz au Chellah festival in Rabat, Morocco, among others.
In the following years Tuur remained very active in the music scene with artists like Ntjam Rosie, State of Monc, Rogier Teldeman Trio, Teus Nobel etc…
It was in 2012 that he created a band of his own, Tuur Moens and Syndicate: an 11-piece fur band of international musicians. With this project he recorded, produced and released the EP album ‘Clockwise’. The same year as the album release, Tuur performed with his syndicate at the North Sea Jazz Festival (2012), Breda Jazz Festival and Delft Jazz Festival. Due to busy schedules and band members that no longer lived in The Netherlands, it became rather difficult to continue the development of this band, so Tuur decided to stop the project in 2013.
CURRENT INFLUENCES AND COLLABORATIONS
Over the years, Tuur’s style of composing has evolved considerably. In 2012, Tuur met a musician via YouTube. He connected with Munir Hossn, a Brazilian multi- instrumentalist, producer and composer known from his work with, amongst others, Mayra Andrade, Daniela Mercury, Alfredo Rodriquez, Roberto Mendes and his own project ‘Made in Nordeste’. The rendezvous took place after Tuur added drums and percussion to a song ‘Tudo bala’ that originally only consisted of guitar and vocals. Since then, Tuur and Munir became good friends and share the stage often. Through this encounter Tuur met several influential musicians from the French, Spanish, Cuban, Brazilian and African music scene.
Since 2014, Tuur has been focusing also on composing while remaining active as a sideman in several bands such as Rogier Telderman Trio, trumpet player Teus Nobel, Mn’ Jam Experiment, Ntjam Rosie, Dina Medina where he takes the drum parts and some arranging roles for his account in various albums, like ‘Elle’, ‘At the back of Beyond’, ‘The One’ of Ntjam Rosie, ‘Contours’ of Rogier Telderman Trio, ‘Pegam na Mô’ of Dina Medina, ‘Social Music’ and ‘Journey of Man’ of Teus Nobel, ‘Live with a boom’ of Mn’ Jam Experiment (CD and DVD) etc…
It was in 2016 that Tuur was asked to be a regular drummer with the Cape Verdian singer Lura, a new challenge that opened new international roads. Tuur works also as a recording artist for several producers around the globe, such as NinoJazz from Angola, who produces for many African artists.