Erena Terakubo

Japanese Jazz Saxophonist

Erena Terakubo was born in Sapporo, Japan in 1992. She began playing the alto saxophone at the age of nine. Between the ages of 10 and 15, she participated in the Sapporo Junior Jazz Orchestra, where she had the opportunity to have jazz clinics with musicians including Herbie Hancock and Tiger Okoshi. Terakubo later attended the Berklee Five-Week Summer Performance Program, where she was rewarded a full-tuition scholarship and was selected for the Berklee Summer Jazz Workshop with Terri Lyne Carrington. In 2010, she recorded her first album, "North Bird" with Kenny Barron, Christian McBride, Lee Pearson, and Peter Bernstein. The album was released in Japan by Japanese major record label King, reached no. 1 on the Japanese jazz charts, and was awarded Swing Journal's Gold Disc. Later that year, she performed with Ron Carter, Omar Hakim, and Will Boulware as part of the Tokyo Jazz Festival. In 2011, Terakubo recorded her second album, "New York Attitude" with Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Lee Pearson, and Dominick Farinacci, and she was chosen as one of just six Presidential Scholars from across the world to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston. Her concert appearances have included Tokyo Jazz Festival, Sapporo City Jazz Festival, Jazz Week Osaka 2010 (with Michel Camilo Trio), Nagoya Jazz Festival (with Yosuke Yamashita), Kitara Hall (with Sapporo Symphony Orchestra), and D.C. Jazz Festival 2012. She has been fortunate to work with musicians such as Sadao Watanabe, Terumasa Hino, Eddie Gomez, Jimmy Cobb, and Anthony Jackson.. Terakubo has been selected to perform in summer 2012, at the Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles, as part of Bill Cosby's portion of the program. In 2013, her long-awaited third album “Burkina” with Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Lenny White & Jimmy Cobb set a high valuation on her ability. In 2014, she graduated Berklee College Of Music In 2015, Moved to New York City