Deja Terzic was born in Banja Luka, Yugoslavia, on september 14th ,1970. With his parents he moved to Germany in 1972 , to a small town in Bavaria, Kirchenlamitz, where he has attended school. Dejan has moved to Nuremberg in 1990 after finishing school, where he started to study jazz and contemporary music at the Meistersinger Conservatory.
After spending there the first year he decided to visit new york in order to attend some of the best schools in jazz. In summer 1991 he joined the Vermont Jazz Center in Brattleboro, Vermont. The faculty programme featured jazzgreats like Jimmy Cobb, Tal Farlow, Don Friedman. Apart from those, the workshop was directed by guitarlegend Attila Zoller, so Dejan got in touch with some of the world's greatest players. Especially Attila Zoller was a strong influence.
In New York City Dejan got a member of the Drummers' Collective, a pure drum school, where he studied with Marvin "Smitty" Smith and Mike Clark. Another strong influence was Bill Stewart, whom he had studied with. Back in Germany in Autumn 1991 Dejan changed to the Hermann Zilcher Conservatory in Würzburg, where he studied with Bill Elgart.
In spring of 1992 he became a member of the Bavarian First Herd, the Bavarian youth jazz orchstra conducted by Dusko Goykovic. In this band Dejan Terzic made his first steps as a professional session drummer. In the Summer of 1993 Dejan visited the Vermont Jazz Center again, after Attila Zoller invited him to come to t.....
