At 24 years-old, Derek Gray has established himself as an up-and-coming drummer and percussionist on the Canadian music scene. Since completing a Bachelor of Contemporary Music Degree at Humber College - where he performed with legendary bassist Dave Holland as a member of the Humber Studio Jazz Ensemble - Derek has emerged as one of Toronto's finest young musicians. In Toronto, Derek works extensively as a bandleader, composer, and sideman performing regularly with a variety of projects, including modern-jazz quintet Tesseract (www.tesseractmusic.com), Gray Matter (www.graymattermusic.ca), and the Canadian Indo-Jazz ensemble Monsoon (www.monsoon-music.com).Derek has performed/studied around the world - most recently, he spent January/February 2013 studying folkloric music in Havana, Cuba. Working with Eryk Michael Duarte Herrera, aka.“Lucumi” (Jane Bunnett, Rumberos de Cuba), Derek focused on Batá (drumming tradition closely related to the Santeria religion) - learning the drum language, vocal “cantos", and the spiritual context of the music. In addition, Derek has spent time studying with master Batálero Julio Davalos (Conjunto Folklorico de Cuba) in Switzerland/Germany.In the summer of 2009, Derek travelled to Ghana to study traditional West African hand drumming, and over the course of two months, completed an Ethnomusicology course at University of Ghana. He also studied West African percussion with master drummers Kwasi Dunyo and Ledzi Agudzemegah in Dagbamete, a village in the Volta Region.Over the past few years, Derek has received a number of awards, including Humber College's President's Medal for leadership, the Garfield Weston National Level Scholarship for leadership, the SABIAN Cymbals Award + Scholarship, the George McCrae Award for musical excellence, and the Principal’s Award for Student Leadership.