Bio
Born in Kanagawa, Japan, Tetsuya Takeno is a drummer, percussionist, composer, scholar, and educator. After early training as a pianist, he studied percussion performance (B.M and M.M) at the Youngstown State University and later earned a Ph.D. in composition at the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities.
As a composer, his music has been performed nationally by ensembles such as the Greenville Symphony Orchestra (PA), and Zeitgeist along with the number of university ensembles. His recent composition Samsara for chamber ensemble won the Eric Stokes Song Contest 2018. In addition, his other composition Bubblez for percussion ensemble with electronics was listed under the Special Mentions of RMN Call for Chamber Music Recordings 2018, UK.
As a performer, he has been performing diverse musical styles from symphony orchestra, jazz, theatre to world music along with current top 40 music in the United States and Japan. Tetsuya has appeared with numerous groups and artists including the Cantus Vocal Ensemble, Greenville Symphony Orchestra, Electric Avenue, Melody Best Band, Popular Girl, Elemental Ensemble, New Native Theatre, Fandazzi Fire Circus, and Holland America Line just to name a few. As a jazz drummer, he performed also performed with several well-known artists, including Wayne Bergeron, Allen Vizzutti, Sean Jones, and Grammy Award Winner Ralph Lalama. As a percussionist, he won the Dana Young Artist Competition 2006 and performed with the orchestra as a concerto soloist. Tetsuya can be heard on recordings with performers such as New Native Theater, Fandazzi Fire Circus, Bob Yang, Youngstown Percussion Collective, and Modern Music Society.
One of his recent research topics is the analysis of living composers' works. His analytical work “Metric Structure of the Compositions by Miles Okazaki” is selected at the Research on Contemporary Composition Conference (ROCC) 2017 at the University of North Georgia and published through it. Tetsuya’s another analytical work “cheating, lying, stealing by David Lang, Permutations and increasing/decreasing units in the composition’s rhythmic structure” was selected for the paper presentation at the National Association of Composers/ USA (NACUSA) National Conference 2018 at William Jewel College, Kansas City, Missouri.
As an educator, he has been teaching many different educational levels, from elementary school, high school drumlines to universities such as the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities, and Youngstown State University. He recently found M&T Music Studios.