David Anania made a return to ONHS on Thursday, April 17th, to be added to the school’s Hall of Fame. The professional drummer, producer, and performer made a killer impression on the audience with a 9-minute drum solo. Anania attended North for his high school career and graduated with the class of 1988. In the fall of ‘88, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and was a Jazz Studies major.
Anania always knew he wanted to be a professional musician; he shared in an interview that his older brother would drum all the time, and when he was 5 years old, he started taking after his brother. “I got bit by the bug very early, and I’m really fortunate about that, because I know that it’s not always the case with some people.”
When Anania went to the North, he was heavily involved within the music department. “The music department was always just kind of, it was good, you know? I had good teachers.” He was in every music club you can name, stemming from choir to jazz band, and the chorale all the way to madrigals and more.
Although the school had added some new additions over the years, he noted that everything down in the music rooms looks and feels exactly the same.
During his senior year, Anania landed the lead role in the school musical. As mentioned before, Anania always wanted to be a performer; being in a musical gave him a chance to practice all the different aspects of performing. ”It was definitely out of the wheelhouse, which is great. I think pushing yourself as often as possible, as long as it makes sense to do it, is really important when you think in general, and being in the musical definitely did that.”
After graduating with the class of ‘88, he continued his education at the University of Minnesota, where he was studying music while also playing with various bands in his free time.
The summer after his freshman year of college, Anania commented that a big part of him living in Minnesota after school was due to the Valley Fair. At the time, Minneapolis had a really big music scene that was beneficial for musicians; Because of that, Anania stated, “It led me to the next phase, which was living in Minneapolis for about 10 years and playing there.”
After his time in Minneapolis, Anania moved to the Big Apple for a new job he booked which consisted of him being a drummer for the Blue Man Group. Anania was originally born just north of NYC, “it felt like a homecoming moving back.”
The Blue Man Group is an art performance company that was founded in New York in 1989. The characters in the groups are always painted blue, never speak, and are usually doing some sort of odd comedy performance that may include music.
The directors of the group quickly caught a liking to the style he brought to the table. “I was getting asked to do special performances for the Blue Man Group, like this Wango Tango music festival at Dodger Stadium, which was 45,000 people back in the day. So it was like Jessica Simpson, the Backstreet Boys, Shaggy, Ricky Martin, and Nelly Furtado.”
During his career in NYC, the group was looking to expand their performances to other places. That led to them taking up shop in Berlin Germany. Anania was part of the original group that was sent out there and ended up living in Germany for 18 years.
“It’s a whole other ball game over there. And I got to do some travel too, which was great, but I also had wonderful playing experiences too, like just being in that show for so long, and they put another opportunity for me to kind of get picked out of the show, and we did… this thing called the Royal Variety performance in 2005, and that was with the Queen of England.“
Anania now lives in Minneapolis, MN, and is the Director of Artist Relations for GEWA Drums. He takes care of the drumming equipment for different musicians/bands that are on tour, as well as hosting different drum clinics. The job lets him travel and meet new people which he enjoys.
