As the founder of Drum Happy CIC, Elk Burland provides group drumming and collaborative music experiences to those who might not ordinarily have access to this extraordinarily life changing opportunity. He delivers within corporate businesses, the events and conferencing space and mental health and rehab facilities where surprisingly the needs and solutions through this medium are very similar. Elk has been immersed in group drumming, movement and collaborative music making for the last 35 years.

 

The therapeutic benefits of drumming quite literally saved his life after suffering in his youth with his own mental health, addiction, homelessness and a short spell in prison. Drumming has guided him on a magnificent path that now allows him to deliver its transformative qualities to others and have the honour of witnessing it light people up, spark their creativity and bring them together. In addition to having more than 35+ years’ experience as a professional musician and sound engineer Elk also has a first class honours degree in music production, level 4 diploma in therapeutic counselling, training in Village Music Circle drum circle facilitation, Rhythm2Recovery therapeutic drumming programs (based on the latest neuro-science) and Bridging the Gap (rehab and recovery skills development training) and he has created his own mentoring, training and volunteering programs for both drum circle facilitators and sound engineers.

 

When he's not organising and delivering collaborative music and movement workshops, you may find him playing the saxophone in magnificent carnival spectaculars or tinkering with crazy and complex synthesiser set ups for the sheer joy and amusement of it.