Henrique De Almeida

"I make a living playing the drums, so I play a lot of different things. I didn't plan this. If you have to pay rent and survive playing music, I think you get good real quick. Since it was really a necessity, I couldn't say no to gigs. That's how I started."

"I've played Afro-Cuban music with some of the greatest Afro-Cuban musicians, like Giovanni Hidalgo, Hilton Ruiz, and Dave Valentin. I played in Brazil, of course, and I toured with a lot of the Brazilian pop artists there. Then I came to Berklee and played big band with Phil Wilson and Wayne Naus here and ended up touring with some of the best jazz big bands in the country, such as the USAFA Falconaires. I played funk with James Brown's bass player for a while, Jimmie Moore. Then I got heavily interested in rock, jazz, and fusion and performed with some of my favorite fusion artists, such Steve Hunt, Baron Brown, Matt Garrison, Bill Summers, and others. I went to New Orleans and played a lot of Delta blues. So I was very lucky to play the different styles with people that have some sort of ownership of the music."

"There is a thread in this music. What they have in common is these little rhythmic cells, things that are actually from Africa and other ancient places. This is in Brazilian music, in Afro-Cuban music. It's in calypso, it's in New Orleans music. So there is a little musical DNA that's in all of them. It's like cooking. If you understand what curry does, what salt does, what pepper does, what garlic does, what olive oil does, you can play with food. I tell that to my students in every class: I don't want them to play rhythms; I want them to play with the rhythms."

"Berklee is the only music school in the world with this type of community. One that keeps inspiring you daily to be the best you can be. You are surounded by people who absolutely loves what they do, where one can find so many other artists/students/teachers interested in something that YOU are interest in! Hip-Hop, rock, jazz, fusion, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, New Orleans, rudimental, funk, Indian music, West African nusic, netal, classical—you name it, we got it!"