Skender Makota is a Chicago based composer, producer/engineer and performer, with focus on electronic music: house, techno, ambient/chill, electronica. Berklee College of Music (Boston, USA) grad, with a degree in Music Production and Engineering and Jazz Piano, he is the multi-instrumentalist of Chicago USA based Live House Duo with Chicago DJ Mel Hammond “Ash & Dash”, Da Monkeynutz Project, as well as music collaborator with many world famous music producers and DJ’s from Chicago, who often played the key role in developing the sounds of techno and house music in the 80’s and 90’s, such as late Frankie Knucles, Roy Davis Jr., Abicah Soul Project, Julius the Madthinker and numerous other Chicago-based house music performers. Over time, SKender focused on his own work, and composed, produced, engineered and played on hundreds of his own productions. He spent most of his time in the studio, composing and preparing his repertoire and learning the craft of sound production and DJing/Live Sound mixing as well as many other critical performance elements, such as live sound reinforcement and professional stage lighting. While working in Chicago for a major professional audio distributor, and as a musical instrument product specialist for major brands (Moog Synthesizers, TC Electronic etc) Skender understood very well that total control and understanding of all aspects in music making are crucial to be able to deliver the sound he was going for. This meant actually playing your own instruments, recording and engineering your own sound, as well as properly delivering the sound to the audience by using the quality audio and visual equipment. When playing live, Skender performs his own material/songs, using an Ableton Live rig, Moog synthesizers, guitar and bass, and will often live-record his own productions on stage or improvise on a new sound while on stage. This ability of live remix (using stems of own material) means that every performance is slightly different, depending on which stems/tracks were used on the fly in the improv stage. As a result, Live Act performances may be up to 2 hours long and unique in all aspects. Skender was born in Sarajevo (Bosnia & Herzegovina), and grew up on the beautiful beaches of Croatia, where he developed his skills in music theory (harmony, ear training, counterpoint Skender has been studying and performing music since the age of 7.
Music is the only "pure" human creation, not exploited, controlled, sold, resold and and destroyed like everything else, it only happens on Earth, this arbitrary physical occurrence which makes us happy, sad... It only happens here on Terra, cause air makes it possible for us to hear (and some even use it to breathe here and there as well, I heard..) Music is the universal language that everyone speaks by default, and styles, genres, sub-genres and sub-sub-genres, are just elements of that language. Not a cause for division, separation or defining the social status. No style is less or more important, they are all needed and part of our future collective cultural treasure, as well as basis for further innovation.