Community percussion project 2025

Susanne Hanke has been playing drums for 35 years and discovered the cajon as an ‘alternative’ percussion instrument in 2003. She completed a year of study at the Drummers Institute in Düsseldorf in 2000 and then studied for many months with various musicians in the USA. 

Since 2001, Susanne has been working as a freelance percussionist in many different ensembles, bands and theatre productions (including Beats & Noises/Showpercussion, Eurocats, BOB!FEST/Percussion, Circus Roncalli/Percussion, Angie Taylor Showpercussion). She has also worked as a musician for numerous television stations and video productions (e.g. ESC Vorentscheid 2023) and has been running a drum and cajon school in the west of Cologne since 2007. 

Susanne gives many evening courses, leads interactive company workshops, trains groups of educators and coaches large groups of young people and adults every year (lecturer at the Cologne Percussion Festival 2023 and 2024, lecturer for Mainpop Bandcamp Flinta at the Bavarian Music Academy Hammelburg since 2022).

Ranvita Hahn is a musician (conga & Afro drums, handpan, buk/taiko, frame drums, percussion), advanced TaKeTiNa® rhythm teacher and founder of the Rhythmuswelten school in Cologne. She is also trained in music and dance therapy and completed coaching training with Dr Klaus Horn. Since the early 1990s, she has been leading various percussion courses and events (conga & Afro drums, frame drums, handpan, taiko). 

With her many years of experience, she works with a wide range of target groups – from social projects and teacher training to team events with executives. Her main project is the Rhythmuswelten® school, which began in 1991 in rehearsal rooms in Cologne and, after 25 years in a former iron foundry in Hürth (1999 to the end of 2024), has been back in Cologne since 2025.

Syavash Rastani is a percussionist with Iranian roots. Born in Tehran in 1986 and raised in Cologne, he learned to play the Persian goblet drum tombak at the age of seven under Mohammad Hashemi. Later, percussion master Behnam Samani became his teacher. Rastani uses his instruments tombak (also called zarb), daf (a frame drum also used by Sufis) and kuzeh (zarbang-udu) both in the context of traditional Iranian music and across genres.

He is a member of various ensembles, including the ‘Ensemble Barbad’ of Iranian singer Maryam Akhondy. In collaboration with the Cologne Philharmonic, Syavash has been involved in community projects since 2021, contributing in the field of percussion, among other areas. Since 2022, he has also been giving regular concerts in secondary schools with members of the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra, and since 2023 he has been participating annually in children's concerts at the Philharmonie Luxembourg.

As part of his annual world music concert series ‘SYA LIVE,’ he organises encounters between musicians from different cultural backgrounds. Syavash has been involved in music education in schools and social institutions since 2008. He is also a lecturer in percussion at the Landesmusikakademie NRW.

After completing his military service in the Army Music Corps 300 (Koblenz), Lukas Mettler studied percussion and timpani with a focus on artistic and pedagogical studies at the music academies in Cologne and Düsseldorf. While still a student, he gained orchestral experience through internships and temporary contracts with the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, the Essen Philharmonic Orchestra and the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, among others. 

Since 2018, he has been head of the percussion department at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne. His students have won numerous awards, including national prizes at Jugend musiziert and the Youth Chamber Music Promotion Prize of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Most recently, Lukas Mettler and Christoph Sietzen led a music education project at the Cologne Philharmonic in January 2025, which actively involved over 200 students. In addition to his teaching activities, Lukas Mettler is a lecturer for workshops and register rehearsals and a mentor in the field of instrumental pedagogy.

Susanne Badde studied school music and biology for secondary school teaching from 1992 to 1999 at the Cologne University of Music and Dance and the University of Cologne. After completing her teaching internship and subsequently taking up a permanent position at the Humboldt Gymnasium in Cologne, she undertook several study visits to Brazil, including active participation in the carnivals in Rio de Janeiro and Recife. 

These experiences inspired her to found a samba group at the Humboldt Gymnasium in 2002, with which she has since performed regularly at the Cologne Carnival and at cultural events in the Cologne area, such as the Edelweißpiratenfestival. 

In addition, she completed the »Raízes do Brasil« training course with Dudu Tucci in Berlin, which had a lasting influence on her artistic and educational work in the field of Brazilian percussion.