Erena Terakubo Quartet to Play D.C. Jazz Festival

Berklee College of Music's Erena Terakubo Quartet is headed to Washington, D.C. on June 3 to perform on the D.C. Jazz Festival. Leader Erena Terakubo is a phenomenon on alto saxophone, has made several award-winning recordings with artists such as Kenny Barron and Ron Carter, and is now the recipient of the full tuition, room, and board Berklee Presidential Scholarship. Terakubo will be joined by some of her favorite Berklee players, hailing from Japan, Italy, and the U.S.

The group's performance, set for June 3 at 6:00 p.m. on the Millennium Stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, will be webcast live and archived at kennedy-center.org. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 
is located at 2700 F Street NW. 
Admission is free.

The Erena Terakubo Quartet is Erena Terakubo, alto saxophone, Sapporo, Japan; Takeshi Ohbayashi, piano, Hiroshima, Japan; Zach Brown, bass, Columbia, Maryland; and Roberto Giaquinto, drums, Rome, Italy.

With more than 100 performances in dozens of venues across the city, the D.C. Jazz Festival is the largest music festival in Washington, D.C. and has become one of the most highly anticipated cultural events in the nation's capital. The festival presents year-round music programs and performances by local, national, and international artists; promotes music integration in school curricula; and actively supports community outreach to expand and diversify the audience of jazz enthusiasts. For more information about the DC Jazz Festival and its upcoming programs, visit dcjazzfest.org. 

The Erena Terakubo Quartet

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 disc, "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), and Kitara Hall (with Sapporo Symphony Orchestra). She has been fortunate to work with such musicians as Sadao Watanabe, Terumasa Hino, Eddie Gomez, Jimmy Cobb, and Anthony Jackson. Terakubo has been selected to perform this summer at the Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles, as part of Bill Cosby's portion of the program.

A native of Hiroshima, Japan, Takeshi Ohbayashi began playing piano at the age of two. Many years later, in 2007, after applying to and receiving a scholarship from Berklee College of Music, Ohbayashi began his studies in the U.S.

While in school, Ohbayashi was selected to be a part of the initial class of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, led by Danilo Pérez. During his time there, Takeshi studied, performed, and taught clinics all around the globe with world-class musicians. Having graduated from Berklee in 2011, he currently resides in New York and leads his own group, as well as touring as a sideman around the world.

Zach Brown, a 21‐year‐old bassist from the Washington, D.C. area, has performed with artists such as Paquito D'Rivera, Wynton Marsalis, Donald Harrison, Wycliffe Gordon, Sachal Vasandani, Benny Green, Terell Stafford, the New York Voices, and many others. Brown has performed in international festivals, including Jazz Kaar in Estonia; Kaunas Jazz in Lithuania; Panama Jazz Festival; Festival Cultural in Zacatecas, Mexico; Clifford Brown Jazz Fest; Telluride Jazz Festival; and the Detroit Jazz Fest, as well as venues including the Kennedy Center, Blues Alley, Regattabar, Yoshi's Jazz Club, and Dizzy's Club Coca‐Cola. Brown currently attends Berklee College of Music and is a part of the Global Jazz Institute, under the direction of Danilo Pérez. 

Roberto Giaquinto started out playing drums in a music school in Naples, Italy, where he also had his first experiences in the music scene, being a member of different jazz, blues, and rock bands. He later moved to Rome and enrolled at Conservatorio Licinio Refice, taking a degree in jazz arranging.

In Rome he performed with many musicians from all over the world, in the city clubs and in several major festivals in Italy and the rest of Europe, including Casa del Jazz, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Villa Celimontana, and Actual Festival.

He has also received scholarships—Elvin Jones Zildjian Award and Nuoro Jazz from Paolo Fresu—and won national competitions, including the St. Louis Jazz Contest, Baronissi Jazz, Piacenza Jazz, and Ronciglione Jazz.

Roberto is currently part of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, under artistic director Danilo Pérez. He has performed at the Detroit Jazz Festival, Beantown Jazz Festival, Kimmel Center, Panama Jazz Festival, JEN New Orleans, Boston Music Awards, and Regattabar, with musicians like Joe Lovano and John Patitucci, to name a few.  He is a member of the bands of pianist Christian Li and guitarist Mike Bono.