A little bit about us:

	Dan McMillan is Timbeleza's conductor and go-to guy.  He has studied Brazilian, African, and Afro-Cuban percussion for nearly two decades, building numerous percussion ensembles and engaging in non-profit work to bring the percussive styles of diverse cultures into the mainstream.  He honors and respects the traditions that he has studied, and is always thinking towards innovation.  If you see him on the street, approach with caution.  He just might try to recruit you.
	Paul Ruggiero has been thwacking big drums since summer 2007. He pounds a surdo in Timbeleza and has the shin bruises to prove it. Paul also beats on African dunduns with Pittsburgh's own Camara Drum and Dance, in which he shreds drum sticks and snaps metal bell strikers with ease.
	Kenn Burris began playing when he was 12 and joined his first band in high school. He studied music and ethnomusicology at Santa Barbara Community College, performed in SBCC Jazz Band and Westmont College Jazz Band, also in Santa Barbara. For sixteen years, Kenn performed, recorded and toured with Pelin, Latin jazz band which opened for such greats as B.B. King, Taj Mahal, Willy Bobo, Mongo Santamaria, Freddie Hubbard, and Third World. He’s done recording sessions with Airto Moreira and Flora Purim, and most recently with Anne Feeney of Pittsburgh. Kenn performed samba, comparsa, and Afro-Cuban 6/8 with percussion and dance ensemble, Ritmo Y Colours, annually for the Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Parade. Kenn is currently performing with Timbeleza, Pittsburgh’s premier samba ensemble.
	Eileen Freedman is a snowboarding yogi-wanna-be who plays repinique in the band and occasionally fills in on surdo and shaker. She is a music teacher who specializes in percussion and ensemble skills with her kids from k-8 in Squirrel Hill. Eileen has performed with the African Music and Dance Ensemble at the University of Pittsburgh, is a member of Guinean drumming ensemble Camara Drum & Dance and is an educator on the World Music Drumming staff under the direction of Will Schmid. At her core she is the busy mother of two boys who is on one long continuous first date with her husband of 14 years.
	This here is Ago Pisztora, one of the surdo (a big drum with an even bigger sound) players, harvesting coconuts. Some years ago, on the gala party of a math conference, he had been accidentally exposed to and infected by 1) Brazilian music - samba, axe, forro - and 2) "caipirinha" (the national drink.)  He still suffers from the simultaneous effects of these two powerful ingredients in the form of being an enthusiast of Brazilian music and drumming in particular. He may never recover entirely - but he doesn't seem to mind.
	In the winter of 2005, John Wuycik saw an African drum performance at Pitt University and immediately fell in love with drumming. He bought a djembe, took African drumming lessons at CCAC and joined the Pittsburgh Area Drum Circle (now Three Rivers Thunder). There he met Siamak and his friend Damien. In March of 2006 Siamak approached John about playing Samba with them, and the seeds of what is now Timbeleza were planted. John also plays for West African drum master Yamoussa Camara in his group Camara Drum and Dance.
	Leila Mandel splits her life between a very quiet (a library) and a very noisy (batucada) environment, and thus achieves perfect balance! She is a native of Rio de Janeiro, and came to the States in 1979. She has been very involved with the Brazilian community in Pittsburgh, and has contributed to the arrepiabrasil.org web site and to the Brazilian Radio Hour on Fridays, at 6PM, on WRCT 88.3, next to her friend Carla Leininger. Thanks to Timbeleza, Leila has been playing cow bells since 2007 and contributing with vocals, and is very happy taking part in this new experience that has been bringing so much joy to so many in Pittsburgh, PA.
	Kevin Seklecki has been activity involved with music for the past 16 years. After getting a foundation in percussion in his high school drum line, he went on to pursue his interest in world music. First, performing traditional Ugandan music with the University of Pittsburgh African Drumming Ensemble. Later Kevin studied Ghanaian Highlife conga drumming. He made the jump to samba while living in Barcelona, Spain. There he got his initiation into Bahian music playing with Batucalada, which performed on a weekly basis at the Parc de la Ciutadella and participated in the Forum 2004 Carnival de Carlinhos Brown. He also had the opportunity to fine tune his skills playing with the Samba Reggae group Jinga. Kevin is excited to be involved in bringing Brazilian music to Pittsburgh.
	With Timbeleza, Derek Fuchs plays shekere and tantan and whatever else he can get his greedy hands on. A lifetime student of music, Derek has been working with all kinds of players across Pittsburgh's changing scene for at least 15 years.
	In the summer prior to his matriculation as a freshman in high school Duke Hunter purchased a set of drums for five dollars and by default became a percussionist. He’s since advanced to perform in his high school and college jazz ensembles. He is also one of the founders of the On and Poppin’ Jazz Collective of the Northern Indiana 574 area code. More recently, he was privileged to travel to West Africa to absorb through osmosis rhythms and culture of Ghana. His favorite drummer is Grunt Loudly, a drummer who existed sometime around the year 31,000 BC, during the onset of human consciousness. While painting in a cave one day, Grunt and his family were tragically murdered by a group of gangsters with more advanced weaponry who were jealous of his impressive drumming technique and his hot wife.
	Dolores Heagy is a dancing fool who's always wanted to be a musician. She started dancing at the tender age of 9 doing tap and hula at the West View Firehall, earned a BA in Dance/Arts Management at Point Park College and has focused on traditional dance and music for her entire career. This includes (but is not limited to) Appalachian, West African (Guinea, Senegal), eastern and western European (Balkan, Irish) and of course Brazilian Samba. For 20 years, Dolores performed and taught all over the US and Canada with the Country Cloggers a group she co-founded and served as Artistic Director. Dolores currently teaches Afro-Caribbean dance, Samba and various aerobic classes at Carnegie Mellon University where she also works in Computing Services in IT support. Now Dolores finally gets to be a musician. She plays and dances with Yamoussa Camara in Camara Drum and Dance and with all the cool people on this page in TIMBELEZA!
	Born in Rio Claro, São Paulo State, Brazil, with parents from Bahia State, Brazil, Ricardo Santos Pereira has been proudly involved in many Afro-Brazilian cultural expressions since the early days of his life. During his childhood he was very active in Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art characterized by a positive philosophy of collective respect and discipline. His background in Samba comes from the Nosso Teto neighborhood, a residential area on the outskirts of Rio Claro city, São Paulo, Brazil, and from "GRASIFS – A Voz do Morro", a historically black Samba School from Rio Claro. Ricardo has been playing repinique for many years for GRASIFS's Bateria, and also played pandeiro for the disbanded "Tok de Carícia Pagode" group from Rio Claro in São Paulo. During his wife, Flavia's, doctoral internship at the University of Pittsburgh in the summer of 2007, Ricardo taught Samba regularly to a very promising group of musicians, now called Timbeleza. Master musician Ricardo currently resides in his native town, and looks forward to continuing to work with Timbeleza, which he sees as having the potential to become one of the United States' premier Samba Schools.
More to come...