:: BIOGRAPHY

I was born on Valentine's Day, 1983 in Bojnice.

I was exposed to the traps of stave from my early childhood as my mom was singing and my dad playing tenor saxophone in a wedding band. I started to attend a folk school of art to learn how to play guitar at Mr. Rudolf Cipov, my teacher who also gave me ABC of contrabass playing.

I was accepted as a nine-year-old-contrabass-player by a folklore group Maly Vtacnik where I knew Peter Hrbik, a great musician, multi-instrumentalist and especially a splendid man, more closely.

The lady called Music has got me and I was accepted by Conservatory in Zilina to become a student of a field of study The Classic Contrabass Play. After I graduated, I started to teach at a private school of art in Prievidza in 2003.

When I was fourteen, I took a five-string banjo into my hands and joined a band Blue Strings from Prievidza. I´ve been keeping in touch with its members up to now.

A year after that, I was addressed by my classmates, who were just establishing a Dixieland band Hot Sound Dixie Band, to join them as a banjo player. As this was something completely new for me, I immediately accepted it. Our first success came in 1999 when we signed up for a Slovak competition called Jazz Christmas. It was organized by Peter Lipa and we were chosen to go further to the semi-finals. An absolutely unexpected success for us was our final victory in this competition as well as gaining a title Discovery of the Year. Break-up of Dixieland in 2001 was caused by a gradual finishing of our studies and our leaving the school.

Another offer came to me in a form of a position of banjo player in my teacher's country band Country Limit Club (CLC) in 2000. I was nicely surprised - it doesn't happen so often that your teacher comes to you and asks you to join his band when you're only 17! It was a big challenge to me and I've learnt a lot there. It was also in this year when I met Pedal Steel Guitar which I felt very good and it became my most favourite and heart closest musical instrument ever.

However, as my first pedal steel was made in Slovakia according to hardly sought plans and it didn't work 100 %, I began to sense its limitations. I realized that as long as I don't have a professional musical instrument, this one will turn out to be a brake for me. As I was still just a student, it was merely a dream to afford to buy a professional "steely" from the USA. At this exact moment, my beloved sister Slávka intervened and ordered me my Emmons D-10 LeGrande in 2003. I named it Angel Heart in honour of her.

In 2005 I received an offer to become a banjo and dobro player in a respected bluegrass Czech band. After five years of my functioning in CLC, I switched to the Czech band Poutnici where I've been playing up to now.

I've co-operated and performed as a guest in several CDs; you may find more detailed information in the section Music.

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