Giant Manta Ray

Nathan Wouters (°1989) was born into a musical family. After starting out on violin, he switched to the double bass at the age of eleven,  attending classical bass lessons at the Academy for Music, Drama and Dance in Merksem under the guidance of Lode Leire. As well as being active in the Orchestra of Jeunesses Musicales Antwerp directed by Ivo Venkov, he also started to develop an interest in other musical genres.  In 2004, he won the 1st price in the “Music Live competition” organized by Jeunesses Musicales Flanders with fellow improvisers Seppe Gebruers and Jakob Warmenbol. This trio proved to be a valuable learning school in the field of improvised music for them.

Although interested in both classical and improvised music, Nathan started his education at the jazz department of the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp with Piet Verbist and Nicolas Thys, never losing track of his classical studies. 
In 2009 he received the 'Oranjebeurs’ granted by The Dutch Community Antwerp.
After an inspiring meeting with Swedish bass player and pedagogue Anders Jormin, Nathan got the chance to study his last year with him at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden).

Active in a variety of bands, Nathan participated in projects such as: Machtelinckx/Badenhorst/Jensson/Wouters, Book Of Air VVOLK, Book of Air Fieldtone, MikMäâk, Sgt. Fuzzy, Wout Gooris Trio, Chasing Penguins, Teun Verbruggen Quartet, etc…

His personal development as an instrumentalist and composer is displayed in the collaborative project [ˈkɑːmos] with Finnish Soprano Aino Peltomaa, as well as in his solo appearances and solo recordings. These settings create an ideal environment for him to explore and work with live effect processing, which has been part of his musical vocabulary since his teens.

As a in demand sideman, Nathan had the chance to work with musicians such as: Mark Turner, Dave Douglas, Hilmar Jensson, Aki Takase, Rudi Mahall, Kris Davis, Marc Ducret, Hayden Chisholm, Alexi Tuomarila, John Ruocco, Kurt Van Herck, Dré Pallemaerts, Benoît Delbecq, Bert Joris, Erwin Vann, Ben Sluijs, Jeroen Van Herzeele, Guillaume Orti, Bo Van der Werf, Joachim Badenhorst, Haakon Aase, Nicola Andrioli, Erik Vermeulen, Jozef Dumoulin, Teun Verbruggen, Giovanni Barcella, Marek Patrman, Erik Thielemans, Toma Gouband,  William Hooker, … 
Besides performing at the main Belgian stages he also performed in China, Chili, Mexico, Japan, Croatia, Finland, Ukraine, Sweden, United Kingdom, Finland, Germany, France, Portugal, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Italy.

Since 2016 Nathan is associated as a teacher at the jazz departement of the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp.