Emagica is the brainchild of Mendel Bouman and a powerful mix of his two greatest passions: Music and Video Games. Emagica makes original, custom music and sounds to your video and / or video game.
Listen to Emagica’s work in the Soundcloud player on the right, buy some in the store, or contact him if you have something else in mind.
A, not so short, musical biography of Emagica aka Mendel Bouman:
A simple music education
Mendel Bouman saw the light in 1979 when he apparently was delivered by a stork in a red bag with his name on it.
After that, he started making music about as soon as he could reach the keys on his mother’s piano, although it may not have always sounded as such ;)
Then, at the age of six, he had general music lessons at the MSA (Music School Amsterdam) (singing, playing the recorder, rythm clapping, basic note reading, all that awesome stuff ;)). Meanwhile at his parent’s church he had much practice singing with the choir (in the bass section) leading to an intersting result (when a kid sings a bass part an octave or two higher ^_^’).
Desperately wanting to play the trumpet at age 8, the dentist told him “No, your teeth are all crooked and you wil die from split lips!” (really!) he had to go for the next best thing and started playing Trombone. But then, Mendel got braces which made Tombone playing difficult, though it didn’t stop him from playing in Peter Guidi‘s
Bands
Jazz Juniors workshop or becoming a part of the JazzFocus Big Band at the MSA in the years to come.
Around 1994 he started playing in a yearly Soul formation, playing Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding Songs. At the same time he started playing in the high school band Nomen Nescio as a drummer (doing covers such as *shivers* More Than Words by Extreme and Relight My Fire (the Take That version o.O) and started playing guitar in the band that would later form the foundation for De Hardheid called Hokahey, where the very first song he learned was Call Me by Blondie (other cover work included Smashing Pumpkins, Faith No More, Nirvana, Black Sabbath and even a song featuring the Hardheid manager Mark on Banjo).
After his high school graduation, his college life led him to Utrecht and due to his steady JazzFocus Big Band gig and his other responsibilies, he stopped playing in these three bands, but the JazzFocus gig continued.
As the JazzFocus Developed, it won more and more prizes:
1st @ the Dutch Big Band competition in Enschede, May 2004
1st @ the 1st International Music School Big Band competition, Top category during the World Music Concour in Kerkrade, June 2004
1st @ the 2nd International Music School Big Band competition, Top category during the World Music Concour in Kerkrade, June 2006
1st @ the national Princess Christina Concours, Category Big Bands, December 2006
1st @ the Dutch Big Band competition in Enschede, May 2007
2nd @ the Swing Big Band Competition in Meppel, May 2008
1st @ the 3rd International Music School Big Band competition, Top category during the World Music Concour in Kerkrade, November 2008
1st @ the national Princess Christina Concours, Category Big Bands, November 2008
The Public’s Award @ the national Princess Christina Concours, Category Big Bands, November 2008
1st @ the national Princess Christina Concours, Category Big Bands, November 2010
1st @ the 3rd International Music School Big Band competition, Top category during the World Music Concour in Kerkrade,, October 2011
Meanwhile, fulltime work at various companies happens, causing Mendel to have too little time for what really matters (Music!) and then just as he has more time for music in 2007, Mendel meets the manager and bass player from the Hardheid (the old bass player and banjo player from Hokahey) and they tell him that they are in need of a Trombone player. Mendel steps up and takes on the job leading to 3 years of concert filled music-mayhem.
2 Years later Mendel enters into a scat battle by accident with Sanne Huijbregts and Roxi Jasper during their stay at the European Youth Music Festival (EMU) in Austria. That very same battle was repeated at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam, awakening Mendel’s dorment desire to become a vocalist.
Youtube posts follow jam sessions and open mics. Mendel’s on a mission.
And then, it finally happens, Mendel believes it is time to quit using his fulltime job as an excuse not to make music. He quits his job and starts his own company (Emagica) to make music for games.
After that, he went on many more entrepreneurial adventures, but those or not all about music. You can read about that on his personal website: MendelBouman.com.