Instructors at 1140MA

Guitar Bass Drums Piano Vocal

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Kentaro Kaneko / Guitarist & Composer Started supporting various artists as a professional from his teens. While enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA, he participated in various live shows and recordings. He formed his own band and performed mainly on the East Coast. His energetic activities caught the attention of American music industry people, and he received a release offer from an American record company, but he turned it down and moved his base of operations to Japan upon graduation. After returning to Japan, he performed regularly at Tokyo DisneySea, supported various artists, and recorded. - In 2010, he released his first solo album, "Way to your heart". - In 2014, he released an album with his own band, "Flamingo Sketch". - In 2022, he began releasing an album "Conversation" digitally, which is the first album of his guitar unit called "RIE". As a supporting musician, he has participated in more than 10 songs, including the opening song for "Ryu ga Gotoku 5" in recent years. Since 2015 he has been performing as a touring musician for Shiori Niiyama. In 2018 he participated in a Hatsune Miku live concert and performed in China. Since 2020 he has been performing in DEAN FUJIOKA's live concerts, including a performance at the Budokan in 2023. Official Website: http://www.kentarokaneko.com

From his high school days Nobu started to perform in several bands while he was in Aoyama gakuin University he passed the world scholarship audition and enrolled in Berklee College of Music from May 2005. While he majored Songwriting, he also learned guitar performance with Bret Willmott, Jim Kelly, Sal Difusco, Don Lappin and Tim Milleretc. He studied broad areas of composition with Jack Perricone, Arnold Friedman, Dan Smith, Henry Gaffney etc, and study conducting with David Callahan and Valerie Taylor etc. After he graduate from the college, played in several bands in Boston for a year and come back Japan in Feb 2009. Now he is working as an instructor, a sideman / guitarist in several bands, and also as a composer for video games. Official Blog: http://nobumusicblog.blog110.fc2.com/

Masakazu Kiritake was born in Hyogo He has been playing guitar since 14 Age 20, he was impressed by Jiro Yoshida's playing who is one of the world-class guitarist, and decided to drop out of college and go to US for study music. In 2004 he enrolled in the Berklee College of Music. He studied composition and arrangement of jazz under the faculty of the jazz composition department. He also studied guitar with Jon Damian who is famous as the author of “The Guitarist's Guide to Composition and Improvising”. He learned a methodology for building an original solo. In 2008 he graduated from Berklee College of Music. Went back to Japan after graduation, he performed in local and taught guitar at a culture school and a guitar school. From 2012, he moved in Tokyo. He perform at live-spot and bar in the metropolitan area. Demo Performance : Misty (solo guitar) Official Website : http://ameblo.jp/masakazu-kiritake/

He started playing rock guitar at the age of 15, and in his late 20s he studied flamenco guitar under Masashi Yamazaki and Kohei Komori. He later became a bass player and began his professional career. In 2005, he received a scholarship to enter Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he majored in Film Scoring and took classes from bass instructors at the college such as Fernando Huergo. After returning to Japan in 2009, he formed the piano trio "Kazuhiro, Taro & Chris" (KT&C) with Kazuhiro Masuda (Pf.) and Chris Duke (Ds.). He is skilled on the 6-string fretless bass, and has a wide repertoire of solo bass as well as trios. He has a career in video game music production, and PearUp Media, a group of composers in Hollywood, USA, where he served as the director of the Japan office, provided orchestration for the SEGA video game "Binary Domain" in 2011, and 52 pieces including the main theme and orchestration for the CAPCOM video game "Resident Evil 6" in 2012. He himself has participated in orchestra recordings in Bratislava and Sydney as a composer manager. He is also a specialist in music notation software, and is the president and CEO of Music Tech Solutions, Inc., which provides paid technical support and lessons for Dorico, Sibelius, Finale, etc. Demo Performance Official Website: http://www.tarokoike.net

Hiroshi Tokieda is a Composer/Arranger/Bass player who was born in Tokyo, Japan. After receiving a degree in Psychology in Tokyo, he took his remarkable versatility to Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA. As a scholarship student, he majored in Film Scoring and graduated with the highest academic distinction (summa cum laude). While pursuing his degree in Boston, Hiroshi worked as a Core Music Tutor on campus that involved teaching his peers music theory in terms of Jazz Harmony, Traditional Harmony, Composition and Arranging. He is currently based in Tokyo and his recent work as a Sound Producer, Bassist, Composer and Arranger includes Singer/Songwriter tea's album, 'Unknown Places', which is released with Sony Music Labels on 23rd October 2019. He also joined tea's Asia tour including her performance at The Hong Kong International Jazz Festival 2019 as a Music Director, Bassist. Awards: Finalist in UK Songwriting Competition "Best New Artist in Japan" by MPCJ (Music Pen Club Japan) Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/hiroshi.tokieda.5

After graduated Berklee College of Music in Boston, U.S.A. as performance & jazz composition and arranging major, he moved to Berlin, Germany in 2010. In 2011, he became, and is still, musical director of Canadian singer Rachelle Jeanty (ex. background vocalist of Celine Dion) as well as her bass player. In 2012, one of his Berlin based project “Falk Bonitz Trio” was invited to "Germany-Week” event hosted by German Embassy in Georgia. In 2010 his first solo album called "Landscapes“ (Disc Union Company) was published. In 2016 his upcoming album with European musicians will be published. He is currently an endowed artist of Adamovic Basses (the Netherlands), Vanderkley Amplification (the Netherlands), and DL Cables (Poland). He moved back to Japan in 2016 & is currently based in Tokyo.

[Education] - Graduated from Souza Lima Music University (Sao Paulo, Brazil) in 2017. - Graduated from the Graduate School of Music and Arts, Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts in 2024. Obtained a Master's degree (Arts). [Career] Since around 2000, he has been playing drum set and Afro-Latin percussion in the commercial music scene in Japan. Main participating artists: Reika Morishita, Akari Fujimoto, etc. Since 2015, he has been performing as a percussionist for Escola de Samba, which parades samba at the Brazilian Carnival festival. To learn about rhythm in music, he visited cities with a strong musical culture, such as the United States (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Chicago, New Orleans, Nashville, New York), Cuba (Havana, Varadero), Turkey (Istanbul, Ankara), and Brazil (Bahia, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo), listened to music in these cities and engaged in cultural exchange through sessions with local musicians. He is holding classes about drum set and percussion performance at Ferris University, Faculty of Music, Department of Musical Arts. [Affiliated academic societies] - Japan Association of Latin American Studies - Japan Musicological Society - Japan Association of Popular Music - ABET - Associacao Brasileira de Etnomusicologia [Message from the instructor] "Drum sets and percussion are used differently depending on the cultural sphere and industry. Each area has its own logic, and based on this, music is produced through the activities of people and continues to be born into the world. I can provide useful lessons for those who want to learn about playing percussion instruments deeper, please make use of them. My lessons are based on constructive criticism and discussion to deepen your understanding of music and improve your technique. " *Online lessons and trial lessons are not available. [Studied with] Dinho Goncalvez

Naoki was born in Ibraki-Pref, Japan in1976 and started playing the drums at age of 15. In 2002 he enrolled Berklee College of Music and studied various drum styles with Casey Scheuerell, Joe Hunt and Dave DiCenso. After graduating from the college, he came back to Japan in 2004. Based in Tokyo, he is performing as a leader and composer of his own trio called We3 and playing on several records like “Tinga Tinga Japonism” of Yasuyoshi Ogino, "Noriaki Hosoya Landscapes” of Naoriaki Hosoya, “Three Wishes” of Nobuki Takamen and so on.

Toshihiro Mori was born and raised in Osaka, Japan. After graduating from Berklee College of Music in Boston MA, he returned to Japan and moved to Tokyo. Soon after, Toshihiro debuted as a drummer in the Japanese major music scene as a part of the pop/rock group "Hemenway". In subsequent years, he took part in notable musical festivals such as Summer Sonic, Rock in Japan, Countdown Japan, Japan Expo (France), Inchon Rock Festival (Korea) and so on. After disbanding in 2015, Toshihiro began his career as a session musician and drum instructor backing up numerous Japanese artists on tour as well as in the studio. In 2018 along with other members he founded the pop band Tozambu. Toshi continues to work within the Japanese music industry as an artist as well as studio musician and instructor spreading his infectious love for music and art to everyone he encounters.

Composer/arranger/keyboardist. She was born in Nigata Prefecture, after graduating Tokyo College of Muisc Composition major she went to USA to study music more. While she was enrolling in Berklee College of Music she was listed on DEANS LIST in succession. She also studied and performed at Miami Dade College as a pianist for opera courses under exclusive contract. She studied composition with Manabu Kawai, Akira Nishimura and Yutaka Fujiwara, studied orchestration with Shinichiro Ikebe, studied jazz piano with Mike Gerber and Jeff Govell. In 2008, as the first Japanese winner, she won 2nd award of "International Songwriting Competition (Instrumental music)" judged by producers of major record companies in USA, popular artists such as Chaka Khan, Ricky Martin and Jerry Lee Lewis. Currently she is working on compositions for DVDs or dance music, performs as a pianist for singers, and teaching piano performance, composition/arranging and ear training. Official Website: http://www.mizuho-official.com

Kazuhiro has started to play classical piano and compositions from his childhood and grew up with listening to various genres of music. While he was studying composition in Berklee College of Music, he started to be interested in improvisation. After coming back Japan he is performing actively as well as working as a composer/arranger for theater, TVCM etc. He studied classical piano with Masako Kobayashi and Robert Christopherson, studied jazz piano with Jeff Covell and Laszlo Gardony. From his own experience of studying various styles of music, now he is guiding his student to cultivate their own personalities.

(Japanese lesson only)

Tea is a Singer/Songwriter/Lyricist who was born in Pune, India. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Fergusson College, Pune, India and a Bachelor’s degree in Songwriting from Berklee College of Music, Boston, USA. Her foundation is an extraordinary mix of genres including but not limited to Western Classical, Indian Classical, Soul, Jazz, R&B and Popular Music with influences from Middle Eastern, Serbian, Chinese and Korean traditional music. Her exposure to such different forms of music has contributed extensively to her broad perspective in terms of her musical interests, ideas and versatility. She has performed live at venues like Hard Rock Café, Pune/Bombay, India, Blue Note, New York, USA and San Francisco Jazz Center, San Francisco, USA. She has won an all-state singing competition in India. She was also a finalist on a Reality TV show called FameX on national television in India and a finalist in an international songwriting competition in the UK. She is currently in the midst of collaborations with musicians and writers in Tokyo, Japan and San Francisco, USA. Her debut EP/CD is coming soon.

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