Yuki Hirate (Tp)
Shotaro Sakai (As)
Hiroki Fujii (Pf)
Satoshi Arakawa (Ba)
Hiroshi Sugiyama (Dr)
Yuuki Hirate
Yuuki Hirate was born in Aichi in 1994. He has been playing the piano since his childhood and started to play the trumpet during elementary school.
When he was a high school student, he played the trumpet for three years at Aichi Meiden High School- which has one of the top school bands in Japan, winning the All Japan Band Competition.
Yuuki graduated from the Nagoya College of Music at the top of his class.
He joined the CUG Jazz Orchestra in 2015 and is based in Nagoya where he is currently active as a pianist and a trumpet player performing in many live gigs.
He studied jazz piano under Shuhei Mizuno and trumpet under Kenji Fujishima. Yuki Hirate won the Best Soloist Prize of the Tokai Big Band Contest in 2016.
Website
http://hirateyuki.com/
Shotaro Sakai
Sakai started the saxaphone, in his school’s brass band when he was a junior high student . He studied saxaphone further under Yasuhiro Kohama, entering the Nagoya College of Music(NCM) in 2013. Whilst studying at the college, Shotaro started playing in public as a member of the CUG Jazz Orchestra. Since graduating from NCM, Sakai now performs at various gigs and has also formed his own jazz big band.
Hiroki Fujii
Pianist
Born in Yamaguchi City, 1988. Fujii started playing drums when he was in the high school. He entered Nagoya Univercity of Art, majoring drums. While studying jazz music at the univercity, he changed his major to jazz piano. He studied piano from Donny Schwekendiek and Shuhei Mizuno.
After graduating from NUA, He started his professional career and actively performs in Tokai area.
Satoshi Arakawa
Satoshi Arakawa was born in 1989 and began studying electric bass and guitar with his brother when he was in junior high school. In 2008, he entered the Nagoya College of Music and studied jazz bass under Osamu Hikage and classical bass under Mitsushi Murakami and Nobuyuki Tanaka. He graduated at the top of the Jazz & Popular Music course of his college and performed at the graduation concert in 2012. At present, Satoshi Arakawa performs as a bass player in the Nagoya region of Japan.
Hiroshi Sugiyama
Hiroshi Sugiyama was born in 1994, Aichi Prefecture . He has studied classical piano since he was an elementary school student, and started playing drums at the age of fifteen. Whilst in high school, Sugiyama joined many pop/rock bands as a support drummer. His interest moved into jazz music after playing funk/fusion music. Hiroshi Sugiyama now actively performs in the Tokai area of Japan.
