Leslie Javan

Born in South Afrika. Mom from Germany, Dad from Egypt. They could'nt get married, because of the apartheid laws at the time and I grew up as an orphan between 8 families (Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Afrikan) so my perspective on life was a nightmare to a lot of people especially in my teens. In the small town I lived, I was the only child studying classical music and it was difficult at first. While doing grade 5 classical guitar, I started learning Latin and Afro Jazz, from other township musicians and from the age of 17, started playing in bands. By 19, I was playing in Jazz clubs and at Rock concerts, while finishing my final year classical music studies. I then furthered my career in the study of composition, arrangement, orchestration and sound engineering. Working with musicians from Classical, Folk, Rock and Jazz music, I learned a lot about world music and the work I write can be in any of these styles to experimental music.
Currently I work as music and music production teacher at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in Cape Town - South Afrika and my contract is until November 2008. My reason for being here, is mainly to set up the production department for UWC, train the students in production and record 8 CD's for 2008. Because I worked with international artists over the years, I decided to include international musos on this project for next year and see if we can collaborate. Maybe even flying some of these musos to SA to perform some concerts with us and do their own concerts as well. Sounds like a good idea. Well, it's a lot of hard work and I need serious people to work with.