Valentine Zimnitsky

Valentine’s passion for music can be traced to his early years in the former Soviet Union.  While he initially learned the accordion, he loved the drums and listened avidly to any bootleg tapes of Western music he could get his hands on.  At first, he didn’t have a real drum set so he had to improvise.  When he moved to the United States, he kept with it and continued to perfect his craft, while also writing poetry.  He moved to New Jersey in 2008 and was a founder of Dream Riders in 2011.

For Valentine, percussion is the ultimate form of expression.  Like life, it should be experienced to its fullest, ever-changing as it interacts with the ebbs and flows of everything around it.  To him, music is a journey that never stands still; it is constantly evolving and transforming itself over time, to be reborn over and over again along the way.