G'day!! My name is Carlos Ferreira. I have spent most of my life thinking about, feeling and living music. I just love it.. I adore being surrounded by musical instruments, as I have a huge passion for percussion !!!

Since arriving in Australia in 1985 I've been dedicated to promote our culture by teaching Brazilian percussion and also working towards providing Melbourne with its own Samba School. I have a vision of leading a Samba School of around 1000 people with a 150-strong "bateria" (drum section). These figures are relatively small when compared to Rio's Samba Schools (which average 5000 people with 400-strong bateria), but a real challenge for Australian standards. It's very easy to organize a percussion group of 500 people outside Brazil to jam together, but it takes a lot of work to train a group of 30 to play the real samba, with all the percussion arrangements, tamborin's lines, proper technique and most importantly, the right feel. Fortunately, music is not a question of where you were born but a question of attitude, listening, dedication, practicing, perseverance and good instruments. I've taken workshops in many countries and I've always succeeded in having my students playing the basic samba feel very quickly. This has proven to be true by the exceptional sound our current bateria delivers... We have around 30 percussionists and I'm the only Brazilian in the group!!!! People in our bateria come from all over the world but the music comes straight from the heart of Rio!! Here you can see a short video where I play my main instrument the REPINIQUE (see picture above).

It's amazing what you can achieve with a group of people (most of them never had touched a drum before joining the Samba School) if you can show them that they CAN play if they want... That's why I'm confident that it's just matter of time before my dream becomes reality. Anyone can play any style of music as far as he or she really wants to do it. I've seen Japanese players playing Pagode ( a sort of "soft" Samba) in such a fantastic way that I would have to practice a lot before even contemplating to join their band !!!

Australia is a great country and it has a large number of very talented musicians and people from all walks of life who, I am sure, would love to participate in a Samba School or even in a small pagode group.
Our mission is to help you and your friends to organize your own bateria. We can train individuals or groups of individuals to play genuine Samba from Rio with the proper feel. We also take Brazilian percussion workshops in schools. We travel interstate and overseas. Please contact us for more details.

If you like music as a professional, amateur or just curious and would like to know a bit more about Brazilian percussion instruments or about trips to Rio Carnival , please contact us.