About Me
Family of Musicians
Nicolas Abramowicz was born by the eastern border of France and Belgium,
in a small town halfway between the Maginot line and Verdun. However, he spent most of his life up to his mid twenties in Paris until he moved to the United-States in the mid 1980’s. Nick comes from a family of musicians. His mother was a music teacher in a conservatory, and his two sisters are baroque musicians. One of them, a violist (Sylvia Abramowicz) in Paris, tours the world and is a recording artist, while the other a, luth player, although not as actively involved, organizes ancient music concerts in her manor (soon to be part Bed & Breakfast) in Normandie.
Nick is the non-“legit” musician of the family. Although he performed his first classical piano concert at the Schola-Cantorum in Paris at the age of 13, he was given his first drum set from a distant cousin, and that was it for him and formal classical instruction. Mainly self-taught with few "get togethers” with other professional drummers, he never felt comfortable learning music in an institutional environment, which explains his short stint at the CIM (jazz school) in Paris which he attended briefly, or at the Berklee School of Music where he won one of the Buddy Rich scholarship award in the late 1980’s.
Influences
Early on Nicolas was also fascinated by pristine nature, and physical activities such as wood sawing and cutting, running, rope climbing, and other sports. He believes that rhythm, nature, and physical culture are all intertwined, and that rhythm is also the common denominator of the other two. To him, specialization is necessary to achieve excellence, yet a high degree of it is too isolating, emprisoning and socially limiting. Instead he uses the concept of cross-fertilization, that is borrowing from one area (sport, or music, or nature) to complement and get inspiration in the other field(s).
Those three areas are his life’s theme, and they are what inspired his first short art film shot at Sunset Crater in Northern Arizona titled “The Summit”. Along with a Hopi friend (Loma Ishi) he is the main actor and he created the soundtrack performing exclusively on acoustic drums. Other themes important to him are also included in this story: freedom, cultural contrasts, conflicting values, vain pursuits, humility, and aesthetics among many others. The setting he chose for the film The Summit is “as bare as the moon”, which is a statement against urbanism as a global social affliction. That attitude has brought many conflicts within because after all jazz music is essentially urban by birth and performance.
This love of nature explains also why Nicolas traveled extensively, starting with his first trips to Sweden and Finland in the summer when he was 18, running in the forest, and swimming in icy lakes by the moonlight. That communion with nature is essential to him, and is the best way to get physically and mentally resourced.
Professional Development
Drafted in the French military as a paratrooper, Nicolas spent 12 months in the Black Forest as a firearm instructor/athlete, after which his father sent him away to learn English in an American University in Tucson, Arizona. That experience would be a turning point in his life. He literally fell in love with the American Southwest, especially Arizona’s Northland, and would decide to return and eventually settle there, and complete his secondary education studying local Native American cultures.
While in graduate school in Flagstaff, he accepted an intern position with the United-Nations for a summer in New York, which allowed him to become familiar with other regions that appealed to him for their vast plains, notably the steppes of Central Asia.
After graduation he would follow his wife, at the time an English As a Foreign Language instructor and State Department grantee, to Kyrgyzstan where he would spend time with nomads in the Tien Shan Himalayan region, by the western border of China.After nearly a year consulting for different local organizations in the Kyrgyz capital, Nicolas would return to Arizona to settle with his wife in Phoenix where he would become a social science instructor in a private University. In 2006 Nicolas completed another short film, "Gym Rhythms", became a certified personal fitness trainer and is looking to publish his first book/manual on, "Athleticism, as a philosophy and way of life". He continues to teach Anthropology and Sociology courses for Arizona community colleges and play music out with different groups around the Phoenix metroplitan area. He is also a practicing certified personal trainer for private clients and though a downtown Phoenix gym .
Jo Jones plays in Omaha, 1938
