Stephen Scharmin is a Belgian musician active in different musical worlds. Born and raised close to the Belgian coast, already at a young age he started playing throughout Flanders as a prodigious child performing with improvised recycled materials. In 1999 he won the first prize at the TAZ Flanders street animation festival in Ostend with his improvisation act. At the age of 18 Stephen decided to study jazz drums and percussion in Latin and Flamenco music in Catalunya, Spain. There he studied with the great Armando Capote, Pablo Posa, Vicens Soler and Andi Rodriguez. He played and toured all over Europe with different bands based in Barcelona as Gadjo and at the age of 24 he decided to study in Cuba, the birthplace of many Latin American genres such as Son and Salsa. He has been performing in the U.S. as in Australia at different festivals with various bands. He joined the Belgian band Mocambo in 2014 and with them he recorded drums and percussion on the album Aruanda. He has been performing and recording for the Playing For Change Band.
He performed with the senegalese composer and bandleader Doudou N’Diaye Rose, Cuban percussionist Dreiser Durruthy, the Cuban pianists/composers Alejandro vargas & Rember Duharte and the Belgian artists Pieter Embrechts and Frank Deruytter.