Teacher Profile: Yuzuru Tanakura
About Yuzuru Tanakura
Yuzuru (Zu) is a renowned instructor of guitar, bass guitar, piano, ukulele, and even recorder! He was born and raised in Japan, and his musical journey started at age 13 playing a bass guitar in a punk rock band. He moved to the Bay area (near San Francisco, CA) at age 15 and was given a guitar from a relative that quickly turned into one of his greatest passions.
After learning the music fundamentals, he studied classical music at Solono Community College in Northern California. While studying Theology in East L.A., CA, he had numerous opportunities to study musical styles of Flamenco, Rock, Blues, Jazz and other genres of music from various artists including Caleb Quaye (guitarist who performed and played in 26 golden albums with Elton John), Jay Leach (studio musician for American Idol) and more.
In the summer of 1998, he traveled near Seattle, WA where he had an opportunity to work with Tim Salzman (Chair, Wind Ensemble Conducting; Professor from University of Washington), Marty Nystrom (a song writer with Integrity, Word, Maranatha records), and Dave Irish (local artist). Later that summer, he traveled with a band organized by Tim Salzman for workshops and concerts to Hokkaido, Japan.
In 1999, he moved to Portland, Oregon where he worked as a music director at a church. Since then, he has worked as a creative arts director/worship pastor at numerous churches working with professional and volunteer musicians of all ages. While he lived near Portland, he also studied under Dan Balmer, Erick Hailstone, Anson Wright (jazz guitarists), and worked with Tim Smith, Paul Greenidge, Clark Bondy, Georgene Rice (local artists).
He started teaching music lessons in 1996. He has taught music as a private music instructor to all ages, as an elementary, middle and high school music teacher, private college music instructor and more. Studying and teaching music has been the continuing passion of his life. He loves being a part of his students’ musical journeys and seeing his students achieve their musical goals.