Other Accomplishments:

• Performed for the Rolling Stones during 1981 US tour
• Co-composer and performer of soundtrack for National Geographic film, "The Great Barrier Reef"
• Percussion for jazz and modern dance workshops in New York and Washington, DC
• Presented several original compositions at Warm Gallery
• Musical Director for "Suliman's Mystic Circus of Wonder"
• Solo performance on Uzbeki daire, Ethnic Dance Theater at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis
• With Boiled in Lead: Album of the Year, Minnesota Music Awards (MMA), 1990-95
• Over 20 awards (MMA, Connie, I.M.D.A. Awards, etc)
• International Festival circuit 1988 to present

Robin Adnan Anders:

Robin has been exploring the world of drums and drumming for over 20 years. Robin'’s band Copperhead was discovered in a Chicago club by Tony Stratton Smith (Chrysalis) and members of King Crimson . Tony Stratton Smith , when not having tea with the Queen of Denmark, managed Genesis, King Crimson, and Ginger Baker’s Airforce. Copperhead was soon signed to Capital Records with Bob Johnston (who produced Simon and Garfunkle’s Bookends, Johnny Cash’s Live at Folsom Prison and Bob Dylan.) producing. Having been previously signed to RCA by Jack Richardson (The Guess Who and Alice Cooper), Robin had two major label deals by the time he was 19 years old.

In addition to his solo endeavors, Robin records and performs with two critically acclaimed world music bands: 3 Mustaphas 3 and "Friends, Fiends and Fronds" by 3 Mustaphas 3 was named the 1992 NAIRD Contemporary World Music Album of the Year, Boiled in Lead was awarded 2nd place for their recording, "Orb". Boiled in Lead also was named Best World Music Band at the Minnesota Music Awards 1990-95. Robin also appears on Greg Brown's recording "Dream Cafe".

With these artists Robin has performed at the Winnipeg Folk Festival (5 times), Edmonton Folk Festival, Reading Rock Festival, Berlin Independence Days, among others, and made numerous radio and television appearances, including performances for the BBC World Service, Canadian Broadcasting Corp., National Public Radio and the PBS world music program "Q". Robin was the co-composer, as well as performer on the soundtrack to the popular National Geographic film "The Great Barrier Reef".

Following are excerpts from an interview with Robin Anders:

Bell Ringer: I began my career as an altar boy for the Catholic church. I guess you could say I spent a lot of my childhood immersed in ritual, and relishing the experience because the mass was in Latin; this seems very mysterious and delicious when you're a small child with a big imagination. It always amazed me that I could play the bell once, twice, then thrice right on cue during the consecration, and that a lot of the other boys couldn't get it right. Looking back, I guess that my first gig was for the largest corporation in the world!
Jazz: Wearing rhinestones and working weekend bar mitzvahs at the Mayflower Hotel as part of the top Washington D.C. showband in the 70's enabled me to do what I really loved: playing my small drum kit in all the hot jazz clubs, like the One Step Down and the Blues Alley. I started playing piano when I was five, and at nineteen did some heavy rock n roll touring with a band called Copperhead after being "discovered" in Chicago by King Crimson and Genesis, but jazz was always my first love. Few people know this, but I even studied jazz dance, eventually performing in Europe as part of a non-profit educational jazz improv ensemble from the Orb Institute. I thought I was in pretty good shape from rock n roll drumming, jogging, weight lifting and everything else I'd done to keep fit over the years, but studying classical dance for a year in order to perform with this jazz improv dancing troupe took all the discipline I could muster.
Sufism: I was studying human consciousness and attended a Washington D.C. workshop given by an Iraqi sufi master. After stretching for what seemed like hours, we just sat and he began playing this drum. It was a transcendent experience that changed my entire life; I mean, 1 thought I had some feeling for music, especially my own music, until I heard him that day. He helped me realize that my life was fueling my music, and that my music could only be as good as the quality of my life. After that I began exploring disciplines from all over the world, like Zen; I tried different forms of meditation, like zazen and T.M., and started deliberately looking for inpsiration and joy on a daily basis to benefit both my life and my music. These different exotic influences show up in many different contexts on "BLUE BUDDHA."
Do Try This At Home: A drum is a home therapy kit in a box; it allows you express any emotion or thought you are feeling at any one given moment in time uithout words. You don't need to know how to play as well as a professional; just tapping your fingers against the head in a simple right-left-right pattern can be beneficial. The most basic rhythm, when played consistentlv, can physiologically rearrange one's mindset; and once your mind has been altered and opened, you can improve a mood, sort out a problem, decide to face a challenge, or work things out while you're playing. You can drum to express joy or grief, alleviate anger or even improve communication skills. When two people play together, they are coming from a completely intuitive place inside, and true communication occurs. Drumming is of social benefit to the community, too, because people learn how to participate in an shared activity as a harmonious group; there's a beneficial entrainment process that the group goes through together. At first, everyone enters the space as an individual determined to play their own music on their drum; but then the energy begins to flow, and the group transforms itself from many individuals into a single instrument being played by some much greater Drummer who controls the entire rhythm.
Blue Buddha Video: Filmed in Minneapolis' First Avenue Club (where Prince's Purple Rain movie was staged), it features the In The Heart Of The Beast Puppet Theatre, other local artists and myself in a mesmerizing, stream-of-consciousness pictorial filled with dazzling colored lights and the whirling figure of a Sufi dancer. Director Dan Pulfuss filled the piece with quick cuts, like pieces from some phantasmogorical dream; it's non-narrative, so key repeated visual and musical phrases create a trance like ambiance that keeps one's eyes glued to the screen while all these wild sounds seep into the consciousness. It's just won a Minnesota Music Award, and was shown on PBS in San Francisco, with other programs scheduled; MTV and VH-l, here we come!
Philosophical Gourmet: I used to attend lots of seminars, workshops, classes, retreats, concerts, lectures and so on, but quickly developed intellectual indigestion by trying to instantly absorb everything that was going on. Now I'm more practical and intuitive; instead of rushing out and trying to embrace as much as I can from a certain teacher or musician all at once, I pick and choose carefully among that person's work, selecting the single recording that seems to reflect what I need to know now, today, this very minute. After I'm done with it, I give myself time to think about it, sort of live with it a little bit before accepting what seems valid and useful, then going on to the next.

Frenzied Ecstasy: My favorite part of the Festivals is the drum jam at the end of each day; it's really the true spirit of the entire fair, a big rhythm party where everyone lets go and dances in a group, energizing themselves and one another into an incredibly powerful peak experience. A whole range of emotions surface for each of the cast and craftspeople as they dance to the drum; you can see it as they move, they're reliving everything that has happened to them throughout the day. The music becomes a cleansing tool, a psycho-neuro balancer that puts the entire day into focus and heals them. The public is invited to dance with the staff, and I love to see grandmothers and little kids get into the act with all of us; that's my whole focus with the music, trying to get people involved with sound in new ways.

Outdoor Enthusiast: I'm out in the wilderness every chance I get; in fact, I live in my tent more than a regular house! I love roughing it, tying my own flies and fishing for king salmon on the north shore of Lake Superior, hiking in the deep forest, taking my canoe out to some deserted island and camping in a remote part of Canada for weeks at a time. I bring my instruments and run long distances in the woods out there, practicing my rhythms as I'm running. Being away from civilization allows me to energize; then, when I return, I am able to write new music based on the experiences 1 have in nature.

The One Thing: Watch your thoughts, because whatever you think becomes reality.