Sonor Signing Session with Chris Coleman & Benny Greb Saturday 28th at 12pm

The amazing Benny Greb and awesome Chris Coleman will be both appearing on the Sonor booth for artist signing sessions on Saturday 28th of September at 12 noon.

Christopher R. Coleman has been playing drums since the ripe old age of 2, sitting on his uncle’s knee in church. He travelled with his father and uncles who performed together in a gospel ensemble.

In his youth he practiced relentlessly with the aim of making it big as a drummer. In Junior high school he earned numerous awards in band competitions, including 1st place for instrumental soloist three years running.

He also took top honours in his hometown “Music Appreciation Awards” at the age of 14 and began traveling throughout the country with several gospel groups including Marvin Winans, Edwin Hawkins, and Vanessa Bell Armstrong – as well as performing with five jazz/variety/show bands.

In 1999, Chris graduated with honours from the Drummer’s Collective. He was offered a scholarship to Berklee School of Music, was accepted into Manhattan School of Music, and received a recommendation from Ed Soph to attend North Texas State. He opted instead to return to his hometown of Saginaw, Michigan to start full-time ministry and ATW Global. He moved briefly to Cleveland to join the instructional staff at Christian Music Academy.

December 8, 2001, Chris was honoured to win 1st place in the National Drum Competition sponsored by Guitar Center, which hosted 30,000+ drummers. He then came to Atlanta to study Bass guitar at AIM, where he was pleased to accept a position teaching drums. In addition to his teaching, Chris keeps a busy schedule touring. He has toured with Pastor Creflo A. Dollar Ministries throughout the country since June 2002, and has travelled to over 40 cities in 3 countries with praise and worship band “Israel and New Breed” since September 2003.

Chris has participated in several major gospel recordings, including Bishop Eddie Long, William Murphy Ministries and others. He plans to record with his band, “The Paradigm” in the very near future. Things have been on the up & up as of June 2006. Chris is now playing for R&B artist Rachelle Ferrell, as well as touring, promoting, & performing with his band. Chris also participated in the 2005 & 2006 “Drummers 4 Jesus” events. He is recognised in the Modern Drummer Mag for the Sept’05’ & June’06’ issues.

2007 was ever exploding for Chris. He is on tour full time with “Chaka Kahn”, as well as Rachelle Ferrell. In 2010 Chris appeared with big success at the Modern Drummer Festival and PASIC.

Benny Greb is one of the most respected drummers in the world today. Apart from headlining nearly every international drum festival you can think of and touring with his clinics and drum camps, he is also recognized as a composer and solo artist as well as bandleader of his own group Moving Parts, which won him the German “Echo Jazz Award” (the German equivalent of a Grammy in jazz).

Benny Greb (born 13 June 1980 in Augsburg, West Germany) is a German drummer, singer and clinician. He started playing the drums at age six and began taking lessons at age twelve. He plays a large variety of music and can be seen playing rock with Stoppok [de] and The Ron Spielman Trio, jazz with The Benny Greb Brass Band and Sabri Tulug Tirpan, funk with Jerobeam, fusion with the NDR Big Band on their Frank Zappa Project, with 3erGezimmeR and Wayne Krantz, and acoustic punk with Strom & Wasser. He has also performed at the Modern Drummer Festival 2010 and at many clinics and drum festivals around the world. Greb is endorsed by Sonor Drums and has his signature snare, Remo Drum Heads, Vic Firth, and by Meinl Percussion. He developed with Meinl a signature line of Byzance Vintage Series cymbals including the “Sand Ride” and “Sand Hats,” both known for their sandblasted finishes. In 2012, Meinl introduced new “Sand Crash” and “Sand Crash/Ride” cymbals to the Byzance Vintage lineup.

In 2009, Greb released his Hudson Music DVD “The Language of Drumming”. In 2015, he released his DVD “The Art And Science Of Groove”.