My Story - Part 3: Becoming A Professional Musician

In 2005, everything changed. My then girlfriend got offered a job in Dublin and asked me if I'd come along. I had nothing to lose, only her, so the decision was clear very quickly. She is the sunshine of my life, always was and always will be. Anyway, we moved to Dublin. Little did I know that this move would shift my entire path as a musician.

Ireland welcomed me in ways I couldn’t imagine. I quickly found work teaching, performing, and producing. I joined Japanese Toys in 2006 and opened Artlane Studios, where we recorded our single 'On My Stereo' and album 'Dance Me'.

I also began playing with Portuguese singer Susana Lima, jazz vocalist Clare Dunne, and later co-formed the acoustic funk-rock duo Baumann & Casey with Steve Casey, and a trio, The CBB Three, with Abel Benito on drums.

In 2008, Abel introduced me to Newpark Music Centre, where he studied Jazz. I applied. This time, I got in.

My jazz studies began in 2009. One year later, I co-founded Tuscany Soundz recording studio with Andreas Nolan. In 2013, I graduated with a First Class Honours Bachelor of Arts in Jazz Performance.

As part of my final year, I formed the Mathias Baumann Group, a septet blending contemporary jazz with classical and still a touch of progressive rock. We recorded an album titled The World Is Coming Together. Around the same time, I recorded a more traditional Jazz album, Expectations, with the Mathias Baumann Quartet. In the coming years I continued to teach music in Clontarf School Of Music & Blanch Music, worked as a dep guitarist in a wedding band and performed many Jazz & corporate Soul & Funk gigs & in Ireland.

Through an artist bootcamp in Dublin, I met creatives from other disciplines in 2013. We felt an instant connection. That year, we formed an interdisciplinary art collective called idir and exhibited our works as 'Group Ego Trip 1' in New York at the New York Foundation for the Arts which was funded by Culture Ireland. After the project was finished I collaborated with Sinéad Cullen and Jo Cummins, two visual artists, on the Synesthesia-Art-Music project 'Raíces del Mundo - Nucleus - 4:09'.

Something clicked in me. I saw how powerful it could be to combine music with other art forms. Throughout 2014, I kept thinking:
"I’ve put so much into these albums. Why just release them the usual way?"

So I dreamed bigger: What if it wasn’t just an album launch? What if it was a full-blown show? With dancers, visual artists, filmmakers - a total sensory experience?

That’s when I realised:
This isn’t just about my music anymore. This is something much bigger.

I called different artists I had worked with over the years. We brainstormed. We imagined. Out of 'The World Is Coming Together', a new project was born which soon changed its name to Puzzle For Peace.

...to be continued...