About Us

Yaşam Hancılar is a Turkish Jazz singer who is a devoted and passionate artist with many tangible qualities. He sings in a way that is charming you fully along. His elegant style, and his unique and warm sound that surrounds you simply brighten your mood. With his acoustic jazz quartet, he seeks for fresh, new, personal and creative ways of interpretation of the jazz standards. Storytelling and musicality are the major characteristics of his choice of repertoire. After taking part in different projects in his musical journey as a singer and an instrumentalist, he founded his first jazz band Jazzmates at the beginning of 2007, in Turkey. That was the starting point of a successful jazz singing career, which leaded him to perform at clubs and festivals including International Istanbul Jazz Festival, Maastricht Jazz Festival, Nardis Jazz Club, De Badcuyp Centrum voor Muziek, amongst many others… He attended the 4th Nardis Young Jazz Vocalists Competition, in 2008, and he won the prize to represent Turkey in Estonia at 8th Nomme International Young Jazz Artists Competition, 2008. Besides his study at the Amsterdam Conservatory Jazz Singing Department, he tours extensively with Yaşam Hancılar Band throughout The Netherlands and Turkey. Yaşam Hancılar’s debut CD ‘Here’s To Life’ is released in December, 2012, which drives him to new phases on his journey in jazz…He’s also the founder and the director of the new music school in Amsterdam: Music For Life.

Orestis Petrakis is a jazz pianist, composer and arranger from Greece. He started playing and studying music from an early age. His interest in sound directed him towards different musical instruments such as piano, guitar, drums and percussion. After some years of classical piano studies, he moved to Patras, Greece, in order to start his studies in Pharmaceutical Sciences. After obtaining a BA and an MA degree, he decided to go back to music and started jazz piano lessons in Athens with Stavros Lantsias and Spyros Manesis. He then decided to move to the Netherlands, where he studied for one year in the Conservatory of Utrecht with Bert van den Brink. He is currently studying in the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Karel Boehlee, Rob van Bavel and Harmen Franje. He won the Incentive Prize at the Keep an Eye International Jazz Awards Competition in 2016 with the project Canvas. Their debut album is expected to come out in 2017.

Marco Zenini was born in Rome and has been playing electric and double bass in a wide variety of musical environments for almost 15 years. After obtaining a degree in classical music in Italy, he moved to Amsterdam in 2010 to study at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where he completed a Master’s degree in Jazz Double Bass in 2015. In 2014 he began collaborating as Head of the Bass Department with the True School of Music in Mumbai. Over the years, Marco’s intense involvement with live performance has led him to travel and play extensively both in major venues and festivals in the Netherlands as well as throughout Europe, Turkey, South Africa and India. Currently, Marco is based in Amsterdam and is involved in several creative projects.

Joan Terol Amigó is a music lover and plays the drums. Although his roots are in Catalonia, land where he was born and grew up, he feels really excited to be living in Amsterdam. The confluence of different musicians from all over the globe was what most caught his attention ever since he moved to the capital of the Netherlands in 2011. The possibility to meet, play and hang out with friends from here and there is a never-ending source of inspiration to his daily life. He started playing drums at the age of 14 in Reus, his hometown, and later he moved to Barcelona to pursue a jazz bachelor degree at the ESMuC. Back then he became a very active musician in the Catalan jazz scene, as a sideman of national and international renowned artists such as Benny Golson, Lee Konitz, Jorge Rossy, Jesse Davis, Maria Schneider, Grant Stewart, Dena DeRose and Joe Magnarelli, among others. In the Netherlands, after completing a jazz master degree at the Amsterdam Conservatory, he shares stages with the following ‘geweldige’ musicians from the Dutch jazz scene: Maarten Hogenhuis, Jesse van Ruler, Ben van Gelder, Joris Roelofs, Reinier Baas, Jasper Blom, Benjamin Herman and Miguel Rodríguez. He won several prizes on jazz competitions such as the Dutch Jazz Competition, Keep An Eye International Jazz Award, Meerjazz International Big Band Competition and Getxo Jazz Competition. He is currently taking part in the Xavi Torres Trio, Maartje Meijer, The BvR Flamenco Big Band, Trempera!, Pablo Martínez Flamenco-Jazz Band, Yasam Hancilar Band, Eleonora Strino Quartet, Néstor Giménez Quartet and Els Tres Tenors.