Rus Nerwich discovered the Saxophone at 18 years old, after seeing Joshua Redman playing in Turkey. There he decided he wanted to become a professional musician. He returned home from his travels and having had no musical education literally begged his way into the University of Cape Town's Jazz program. There he studied with Rene McLean, son of the great Jackie McLean and being so far behind all the other students and with no knowledge of how to read, harmony or anything remotely technical, he set about practicing for 8 hours a day. He then went about learning the hard way by sitting in with everyone and anyone in town. In 2002 he released his first album titled "As Above, So Below". That same year he discovered a book titled, "Yes, they sang" it was a book of songs written in the Ghettos and Concentration camps, this was to set in motion a whole new musical journey. He began a project called "Beyond the Walls". This project is an unprecedented exploration of music from the Holocaust Ghettos and Camps and explores in an improvisational context the artistic creations born by composers, poets and writers during this important time in history. He released and album of this work in 2005. Rus then went to live in Argentina where he put a a trio together, he was invited to play at the prestigious Jazz club in Buenos Aires call "Nototrious" continued to work with his trio and recorded a live album months later. He then returned to South Africa full of inspiration and began writing material for a new project. It was called "Mantras4ModernMan" born out of a partly philosophical idea and a part metaphysical idea that music carries on its waves the intention of the artist/musician. The song is animated by the intention and spirit of the player and ultimately this is what reaches the listener, Nerwich believes there is the possibility of communicating far more subtle dimensions through song. Simple melodies formed the basis of this project and two albums came out in the next year. He then began travelling more and touring more and was invited to play on the South African festival circuit and performed either works from Beyond the Walls or Mantras. Highlight performances were at the Spier Arts Festival, The South African International Jazz Festival, Rocking the Daisies, Grahamstown Arts festival. In 2008 he did his first tour in Europe, performing in France, Portugal, Holland, Belgium and Check Republic and has returned every year since then and continue growing my relationship with European musicians. 2008 also saw Nerwich begin experimenting with the computer, and at the end 2008 he released and album titled "Under the Poetree". The album was nominated for a South African music award and bring together many of my musical influences in a very listenable mix. Currently Nerwich is working on a new album and finishing his first children's book titled "One fine day love came to visit". He has acted in several short films, tv commercials and has a pseudo personality named Chaim Pimpsky. He has performed with many of South Africa's most celebrated musicians. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.