Biography

Kurt Briggs Schindler, born and raised in St. Croix U.S. Virgin Islands, has a long career of playing music. He was inspired by the local music of the Caribbean and two musical parents. He explains that his mother from Cuba is where he got his rhythm and ability to make people dance. His American Father was a proficient pianist and accordionist which he tends to say he got his technical abilities from.

Starting with his first instrument the recorder he found he had a natural ear for music and in the fifth grade took up the flute in his school band. At the age of fourteen he began playing the bass guitar in his first group Bad Influence, an original heavy metal band.

Soon after he started the band Paradox an original rock band and played around the Jacksonville Florida area with great success.

Spending his last year of high school back in St. Croix, he was there when Hurricane Hugo hit and completely destroyed the island.

With no choice to continue schooling on St. Croix he moved to Napa California to start college.

While in the San Francisco Bay area he began the acoustic guitar and played in numerous groups including cultural rock band GRASS CHILD GYPSY and Latin Jazz group AKANTHOS.

GRASS CHILD GYPSY was his first major original band formed from a folk duo of himself and guitarist Brant Roscoe. This duo grew into a nexus of four including drummer Barry Forsythe and bass player Tommy Hill.

GRASS CHILD GYPSY released its first album In 1995’ titled Grass Child Gypsy, an acoustic, bluesy, cultural island mix. In 1999’ they released their second studio album titled Evolution.

In 2001’ Kurt Briggs Schindler, his wife Janelle, son Sequoyah and

daughter Sky decided to return to his homeland and worked

on his first solo album, released in 2002’. This album showed his new passion for flamenco guitar.

In 2002 Kurt also began performing as a soloist on the island of St. Croix playing originals and covers along with his new passion for flamenco guitar. Missing playing in a group and not finding the right members he started down the path of looping, which is technology that allows you to record your music (instruments) live and layer them to sound like a band. This first started off as just guitar layered underneath a solo and vocals but grew to include various instruments such as flute, bass, percussion, beat boxing (mouth percussion).

You can expect to have a great time at his shows with a multitude of people from all ages and ethnicities dancing and having a blast! Don't miss this experience and the virtuoso. Kurt currently plays in the US Virgin Islands and does summer tours in the U.S.

Remember:

“If you can’t play it around a campfire it’s not worth playing”