Carlo Costa

Born in Rome, Carlo Costa already starting playing the drums when he was 10 and also started drum studies at an early age: first in Rome, than at Berklee College of Music in Boston from 2001 until 2005 and finally in the Masters' program in "Jazz Performance" at New York City College, from where he graduated in 2007. His teachers were Joe Lovano, John Patitucci and Drew Gress, among others. His previous fellow-travelers in music were people such as Kenny Warren, Robin Verheyen and Aidan Carroll.   After the German-French Pascal Niggenkemper learned to play the violin and piano as a child, he switched to contrabass when he was 17 and began studying at the Cologne Music College in 1999. Awarded a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), he moved to New York in 2005. Pascal has been well known for quite some time. He is leader of the bands Turbo Pascale and PNTrio, is co-leader (as in Minerva) with Rosco Paje and has played alongside very different musicians such as Lionel Loueke, Phil Woods, Louis Sclavis, Billy Harper and Maria Schneider.