Music has been central to my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up playing bass and drums, starting with rock, blues, and funk music. In college I delved into jazz and Western classical music, earning scholarships for bass in both genres.  In the mid-1990s, I played jazz around Orange County with the likes of Doc Rutherford and in 1996 I toured Italy playing with the Fedele Fenaroli Orchestra.  While the bass has been my primary musical instrument, I became increasingly interested in the percussive traditions of Africa and Asia. In 1991-92 I spent a year in Ghana studying the musical traditions of the Ashanti, Ewe, and Ga. This experience kickstarted my academic career in ethnomusicology and got me exploring other areas of the world.  In 1992-93 and 1996-97 I studied Central Javanese gamelan in Indonesia. In 1995 I earned my B.A. in music from the University of California Santa Cruz under the tutelage of Shinji Eshima and Undang Sumarna.  In 2000 I earned my M.A. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University under the tutelage of Sumarsam, I.M. Harjito, Tanjore Wiswanathan and Anthony Braxton. In 2002 I entered the the Ph.D. program in ethnomusicology at UCLA where I had the privilege of studying AfroCuban traditions with Francisco Aguabella. From 2004 to 2007, I conducted dissertation research and studied the traditional musics of the African and Javanese diaspora in Suriname.

I currently gig playing Latin rock, jazz, and folkloric Cuban music. I teach Ghanaian traditional drumming, Cuban folkloric drumming and singing, and Javanese and Balinese gamelan. Please contact me at sburchman@wesleyan.edu to arrange for individual or group lessons or for facilitated workshops.