Asaf Sirkis

Early life

Sirkis spent his teens and early twenties in Rehovot, Israel where he began drum lessons aged 12. His early musical influences where classical music, Arabic music, Balkan music, Klazmer, Pop, and Israeli folk music. He completed national service 1987–1990. In 1990 he started his professional career working as an all around drummer in Israel. He has played with some of Israel's jazz and world music luminaries such as Harold Rubin, Albert Beger, Yair Dalal, Eyal Sela and many more.

Career

Sirkis moved from Rehovot to Tel Aviv in 1993, and formed his first trio in 1995 featuring Kobi Arad on keyboards and Gabriel Mayer on electric bass. After recording his first trio album One Step Closer (1996) and touring Israel with the trio he formed a new band, The Inner Noise, in 1997. The Inner Noise is a unique trio and was the first jazz/rock group to incorporate drums, church organ and drums.

He left Israel in 1998, settling in London in 1999. In 2000 Sirkis re-formed the Inner Noise trio with Steve Lodder on church organ and Mike Outram on guitar. The band has recorded three acclaimed albums since 2000 (Inner Noise, We Are Falling and The Song Within). In 2000 he met Gilad Atzmon with whom he formed The Orient House Ensemble and recorded 7 albums, including Exile, which won "Best CD of the Year" at the BBC Jazz Award 2003 while the band was nominated for "Best Band" in 2004. After almost 10 years in the OHE, Sirkis left the band in 2009 to focus on his solo career and other collaborations.

Since 2006 Sirkis has been collaborating with reeds player and composer Tim Garland with whom he toured the world and recorded many albums. He has also worked with Jacob Collier, Larry Coryell, Gwilym Simcock, John Abercrombie, Kenny Wheeler, Gary Husband, Andy Sheppard, Bob Sheppard, Mark Egan, Soft Machine, John Etheridge, Mark Wingfield, Nicolas Meier, David Binney, Norman Watt-Roy, Wilko Johnson, Maciek Pysz, Jeff Berlin, Billy Sherwood and many more.

Since 2014, Sirkis has co-led the Sirkis/Bialas International Quartet together with Polish singer Sylwia Bialas. The Quartet features pianist Frank Harrison and USA bassist/harmonica player Patrick Bettison. Their first album Come To Me was released in November 2014 at the London Jazz Festival. The new album received some great reviews world-wide and the band has toured extensively since its release date.

Sirkis' musical influences include The Beatles, The Police, Yes, Genesis, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Allan Holdsworth, Olivier Messiaen, Carnatic Music, and Weather Report.

Education

In recent years, Sirkis has been studying the art of the south Indian vocal percussion (konnakol) at the Tamil centre in west London under the guidance of master percussionist Mr. Paramasamy Kirupakaran and from various other sources. Asaf has developed a simple, step-by-step method of practicing konnakol that can help any instrumentalist or vocalist of any musical genre and level to increase rhythmic awareness and focus. Nowadays, Sirkis is involved in a variety of educational work, bringing konnakol as a useful tool of understanding rhythm to western musicians. Notably he has given many workshops and seminars around the world on the subject and has a YouTube channel with some basic konnakol tutorials.

As leader and collaborator

Album releases with others (early years, Israel 1990-1999)

Album releases with others (London, from 1999)