Globetrotter – He’s also celebrated Christmas with Beyoncé in New York

Dominique Wörndli from Baden is returning home from New York due to the corona crisis and is now running a start-up in the Oederlin area.

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Dominique Wörndli started playing the drums before he could walk properly. He strokes his long angel curls. “When I was just two, I rattled my grandmother with trowels on pots.” He laughs at the memory of his childhood. When he was three years old, he was given his first «Drummeli» and proudly promenade through Baden. Then there was the first mini drum kit in kindergarten. This sealed my career as a musician, so to speak. And: “I already knew in primary school that I wanted to emigrate to New York one day.”

While other people’s early childhood dreams often burst like soap bubbles, with Wörndli everything always seemed to come true. How does he do it? “I don’t know,” he says. «I certainly listen to my gut instinct more than my head. And when I want something, I do everything I can to achieve it. So far it has always worked. ” His nonchalance is enviable and his life story sounds a bit like a fairy tale.

He runs his own business with his partner

For the interview, the now 38-year-old opens the doors to his new realm in the Oederlin area, in the Obersiggenthal district of Rieden, where he and his partner Roxane sell handmade biodegradable soaps and sustainably produced cotton towels under the label “Marmara Studio”. The two have been a couple for three years. The Swiss woman with German-Turkish roots studied political science in Paris; he was a real estate agent in New York and played the drums. The initial long-distance relationship withstood the great distances. Now the two are living together in Baden for the first time and run their start-up company together. Most of the goods they sell online and in select stores come from Istanbul, where Roxane’s mother was born.

Dominique Wörndli’s parents ran a hairdressing salon on Rathausgasse in Baden for decades. Since their retirement in 2016, they have been on a world tour. The drumming junior was also drawn into the distance early on. At 16 he did an exchange year in America. Just 21, he traveled through India on a motorbike for months. On the way he fell in love with an Israeli woman and followed her to Tel Aviv.

“The relationship lasted four months, but I stayed,” says Wörndli, looking at the street sign in Hebrew script that hangs on the wall to commemorate that time. He attended courses at the local jazz school and ran an alternative bar near the beach. “In addition, I organized reggae and soul concerts,” he reports and again as lightly as if it had fallen into his lap. From Tel Aviv, the globetrotter returned to Minnesota. He bought an old bus and drove alone on Route 66 through America and the west coast of California. “After attending the Burning Man Festival, I got stuck in San Francisco on the way back and finally ended up in New York, which was my new home for twelve years.”

Wörndli describes the metropolis as a “hard place”. “Nobody there was waiting for a drummer from Baden.” But here, too, fate played into his hands. With his open manner, the born communicator quickly made contacts. And because he speaks Hebrew fluently, he gained a foothold in the real estate market through Israeli friends and completed an apprenticeship as a broker.

Back in the tranquil surroundings

Gradually he also made a name for himself with his drumming skills, worked with studio musicians and played gigs in jazz clubs. “In Baden, you quickly get to know the local scene. In New York you never know who you’ll meet, ”he says. “I spent one of the last Christmas parties with Jay-Z and Beyoncé.”

Dominique Wörndli was always financially independent and showed herself to be self-determined from an early age. “I never wanted people in authority above me.” He sees the fact that the corona crisis has washed him back from New York to Baden as an advantage: “I live with my great love, have a new company and have not been as creative as I have been in a long time. New York was great, but also loud and hectic. Here I can go down and create something new. ” And he firmly believes that everything will turn out well. “Life is a dance … Don’t stop moving” is his life motto.

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