The KIDS Herald recently met with 13-year-old Evan Amatdjais to hear his music. In addition to an impressive mini-performance, we got a story that we couldn’t wait to share with you – our young readers – about art, passion, practice, and forging your own way.
Evan sings and plays the electric guitar. He’s quite good at it, and it’s hard to believe he’s only been doing it for a few years. Evan has always loved music, calling it his “drive and inspiration”. He especially loves the olden goldies, and at age seven would be looking up the music videos on YouTube. He later taught himself the basics of electric guitar by watching videos online, and at age 11 started lessons on the French side with guitar teacher, Mr. Paul Emmanuel, who Evan calls “a huge inspiration”.
With about 13 songs down-pat, Evan is now focusing on smoothing out techniques, learning more notes, and performing in public – which doesn’t only give him practice, but also confidence. He draws a crowd when performing on The Boardwalk, and hopes to perform in venues in the near future. In fact, he’s already been invited to start doing so. As an adult, he sees himself becoming a musician and digital artist.
Evan has a wide range of hobbies and interests, including football, dancing, drama, drawing (both digital and in sketchbooks), hiking, enjoying the beach, and playing video games. But when it comes to music and art in particular, he says he can go to “another world where I can express emotions and be myself.” In this creative field, he can really get lost in enjoying and creating another world.
Besides football and video games, Evan often felt like it was hard to share common interests with kids his age, and he has often been laughed at for the music that he likes. He shared that he actually likes all sorts of music, but he is especially into older songs, and some kids find that weird. Evan is a fan of some of the greatest musicians, who have greatly influenced today’s music: James Brown, The Beatles, Prince, Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, and Led Zeppelin, to name a few.
Just ask your parents and grandparents about them, or anyone you know to be music fan – they will say that these are the artists that made “real music.”
Despite bullying, Evan decided that he will go for what he loves, which can be hard for kids to do. We’re sure you can probably relate. Maybe you have pretended not to like something, because others make fun of it. But you know what? It doesn’t really matter what others think, you should explore your own tastes and interests.
Evan chose his goals and decided to work hard towards making music, practicing every day. Even though the music he likes to play is not popular amongst his own age group, others love it, and he really enjoys making the listeners happy and meeting fellow music fans. He also is lucky to have supportive parents, who have always reminded him that everyone is unique, and encouraged him to do what he loves and to work hard.
Evan’s father is an art teacher – so he also credits him with passing on the “artistic genes” – and his mother is an English teacher. That surely would have given him an advantage in learning the language. Did we not mention that Evan is originally from Suriname, where they speak Dutch, and only came to St. Maarten at age 10? So, he learned all of these great songs by heart, and started teaching himself how to play an electric guitar in a second language, then moved to St. Maarten, started guitar lessons and within two years started to sing and play publicly. Of course, he also had to get used to speaking English in his day-to-day life at the same time, and keep his grades up at school.
We can admire his drive, which will definitely serve him well in high school – he starts this year. His performance at The KIDS Herald blew us away. He performed Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud, and The Girl from Ipanema – that’s a Brazilian song, with Portuguese lyrics – like a pro.
When asked what advice he would give to other younger kids, he said, “Do what you love, what makes you happy, and what benefits you. If people tell you that you won’t succeed, don’t listen. Study hard, believe in yourself and never give up.”
