Commit To Enrich Yourself | Serghio Jansen

We recently chatted with Serghio Jansen who is best known as a performing guitarist in Aruba.
By day, Serghio is a music instructor at Scol di Musica Rufo Wever and by night he is either managing his entertainment company or playing at events, hotels and/or restaurants across the island. 

Serghio explains how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected him and his fellow musicians as they are one of the front-liners in the hospitality sector and have been directly affected by this.

The future of entertainment in Aruba
When a company goes through budget cuts, entertainment is usually the first one to go unfortunately and Serghio’s first cancellation started on March 13th, which was the same day the first case was announced in Aruba. After this, other calls and messages started coming in about cancellations.

Serghio hopes that things will eventually go back to “normal” for him and his fellow musicians but it will definitely take some time. “You know, there are many musicians in Aruba whose only source of income comes from performing so they don’t have benefits such as holiday allowance for example. If you call in sick or are not performing, you are not making any income.” explains Jansen. This is what separates the entertainment industry from other industries. 

PayPal is also something musicians should consider during this pandemic. He has seen some musician friends living in the US that have set up live videos performing and people can donate through PayPal. “If 60 are people are watching your video and each person donates $5-$10, it can definitely make a difference for one to be able to survive”.

Commit to Enrich Yourself
Pandemic or not, Serghio is choosing to look for creative ways to enrich himself and other musicians so he recently participated in Elite’s Live Sessions which is a live concert concept streamed through Elite’s Facebook page and on TeleAruba. “This is a great moment for us as musicians to dress up, as if we’re playing at a real concert, with great sound, and creating great music together. It’s also a great moment to highlight our up-and-coming talent to the community of Aruba”. 

To conclude, Serghio’s advice to his fellow musicians is to take advantage that you have time on your hands to practice in order to keep improving, compose, and read up your knowledge- whatever your passion may be. Lastly, Serghio hopes that all musicians stay strong and positive through these uncertain times.

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