Tomoko Murabayashi was born and raised in Tsu-city in Mie prefecture, Japan. Her love for music was strongly cultivated, growing up with a musical loving family. Nobody was professionally trained, but country guitar, banjo, mandolin, accordion, there was always somebody playing music at home.
She entered Berklee College of Music (Boston, MA) in 2000, majoring in voice performance. With Donna McElroy, Larry Watson, Catherine Russell, and Gabriel Goodman, she learned the stylistic approach to R&B and Gospel. With Darren Barrett, Winston Maccow, Walter Beasley, and Tiger Okoshi, she learned how to deal with a live band in styles of Hip Hop, R&B, Reggae, and Fusion.
Outside the college, she joined a local church choir at the United Methodist Church, which was directed by Renese King. Upon these achievements, she received the Berklee Achievement Based Scholarship from 2002 to 2004. She also graduated the college with the honor of Cum Laude de.
Her love for African American music led her to its root, African music.
In 2002, she went to Ghana with the group of Joe Galeota to study Ghanaian drumming and dancing. On the trip, she met Bernard Woma, one of the greatest xylophone players, and became one of his students.
After the trip, she instantly became one of lead dancers of Joe Galeota’s West African drumming and dancing group.
On the 2nd trip to Ghana in 2004, she explored the culture of the Northern part of Ghana, traveling by herself for 2 weeks.
In 2004, Tomoko moved to Atlanta, GA. While establishing the new life in ATL, she sought for her musical direction. After a few years of struggle, she finally finished her “four leaf sound” CD project, “27” in 2007.
Now she pursues the master’s degree in jazz studies at Georgia State University. She is also in a certificate process of becoming a Speech Level Singing (SLS) instructor (www.speechlevelsinging.com). She continues her lessons with Keri Hughes and Audrey Shakir (GSU) to improve her vocal techniques further.
thanks for the comment! everyone says my speaking voice and singing voice is different... mmmm~~ it's better they are not, i think.. but i'm glad you liked the songs!
