Victor See Yuen

Music Training:

Victor learned music theory, performance training, recording techniques, making and repairing instruments for four year under the guidance of the legendary Joe Papo Daddiego, founder of the handmade percussion company “JOPA”. One year studying the American Drum set.

Company Affiliations:

Victor has been involved in dance since the seventies as stage manager and lighting director for The Hummingbird Dance Company N.Y.C.; drummer for The Charles Moore Dancers And Drums Of Africa, Mount Morris/Marcus Garvey African Dance Troupe, Clark Center, Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, Dallas Black Dance Company, Sidra Bell Dance N.Y., Francesca Harper’s Modofusion, Earl Mosley & Diversity of Dance and worked with former members of the South Africa’s hit Broadway musical Ipi Tombi in the Soweto Revue. Alvin Ailey, Steps, Broadway Center, Ballet Hispanico, New Dance Group, Perri Dance, Ballet Academy East, etc.

Performance:

Victor has performed with: Sonny Rollins, Luther Vandross, Sarah Vaughn, McCoy Tyner, Kathleen Battle, Wynton Marsalis, Phyllis Hyman, Chico O’Farrell Orchestra, Joel Kaye & the N.Y. Neophonic Orchestra, T.S.Monk, Najee, Nnenna Freelon, Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, Nat Adderley, Stylistics, Mos Def, Judith Jamison, Geoffrey Holder, Arrow, The Mighty Sparrow, Ron Carter, Jonathan Butler, Andre Previn, Frederica von Strade, Calypso Rose, Denroy Morgan, Chic, Brook Benton, Vanessa Rubin, Idris Mohammed, George Russell Big Band, Lord Nelson, Lord Kitchener, Mike Wolf, Rise Robots Rise, Byron Lee & The Dragonaires, Hubert Laws, Ear Candy, Smokers Union, Earl McIntyre & Tri-Carnival, Buffalo Smoke, Clive Alexander, Boogsy Sharpe, Robert Greengage & Charlies Roots, Joe Williams, Weldon Irvin, Francis Mbappe, Terrell Stafford, Spirit Ensemble, Reginald Yates, Kimati Dinnizulu, The Mighty Duke, Chalkdust, Vicky Sue Robinson, Dave Valentino, Eric Gale, Kenny Brawner & Raw Sugar, Marshal Montano, Ralph Moore, Crown Heights Affair, B.T.Express, Sister Sledge, Lord Baron, Leston Paul, Suzy Q, Crazy, Ken Matthews, Helen Merrill, Renee Manning, Bobby Watson, Howard Johnson, Candido, Diane Reeves, Defunkt Big Band, Heritage O.P. and Mongo Santamaria.

Composing Experience:

Victor and Mark Flanders co-wrote the musical score for the 1998 Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater City Center Season Premiere of, Days Past, Not Forgotten, choreographed by Earl Mosley. He has been with the Ailey Organization since 1987. Victor is a songwriter, record producer, arranger, and poet, and has mixed and mastered many outstanding albums and CD recordings. He is president and co-founder of the organic percussion ensemble “Heritage O.P.”. The group has released three CDs Heritage percussion music for dance, exercise and aerobics, Universal Healing a two CD set and When I Start To Play. He wrote the article Music and Dance are One, for The Ailey School Newsletter for Spring 2003. Victor’s duet CD releases with William Catanzaro Evolution Suites and there latest 2007 CD release hot off the press “Percussion for the dance technique of Lester Horton” includes a 16 page instructional booklet writing by Ana Marie Forsythe.

Teaching Experience:

Victor has taught music theory and percussion at the Alvin Ailey School, public and private schools, and colleges in NY, NJ, Florida, Conn., French Guyana, Italy and Denmark.

Other Relevant Experience:

Victor is an accomplished interpretive improvisationalist, playing musical styles from jazz to rock, rhythm and blues to classical, country and western to reggae, calypso to pop, soca to rap, West African to funk, folk to salsa, and gospel to world music. He has recorded hundreds of recordings in many categories of music and has traveled on many world tours on some of the world’s greatest stages throughout North and South America, Europe, the Caribbean and Japan. Including numerous live radio and television broadcasts, and newspaper reviews. In the U.S.A. Victor has performed on MTV, B.E.T., N.Y.One News, Soultrain and Sesame Street. Victor hails from the Caribbean Island of Trinidad and Tobago, W.I. of Chinese, African, Spanish and French ancestry. He relocated to New York City in 1972 to pursue his dream of becoming a professional musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist of world percussion, plays the African Mbira (Kalimba or finger piano), and the Vietnamese bamboo instrument “Dant’rung”. Immersed from childhood in the swinging Trinidadian rhythms, Victor has forged a sound of his own which sparkles in the hit song recordings for Arrow Hot Hot Hot, Byron Lee & The Dragonaires Tiny Winey and The Mighty Sparrow Don’t Back Back, to name a few.