The Empress - Member Bio

Member Bio

Pureum Jin

Producer & Leader, Award-winning Artist, Composer/arranger, and Educator

“...Like Woods in his early years, she’s one of those players who sounds like she was never a beginner, already having found her tone, speed of execution and a generously filled ideas bag. Not many young players can put out an hour of top-tier material without filler...” - Brian Morton, Downbeat Magazine

Pureum Jin is a South Korea-born, NYC-based award-winning saxophonist, arranger, and composer, establishing herself as one of the leading figures in the jazz world with her first studio album ‘The Real Blue’ released through Cellar Live in June 2019. Since its release, the album has been receiving rave reviews from prestige jazz magazines, such as a 4-star review from Downbeat on its September issue, being featured as one of the albums on Jazz at Lincoln Center blog’s June New Release Round-up, making a cover of Jazz People Magazine in Korea, etc.

Pureum’s quickly establishing as a key figure in NYC jazz scene, as she quickly makes debuts on most notable jazz clubs in the city and getting rave reviews from prestige jazz magazines around the world, including Downbeat, New York City Jazz Magazine, Jazz People, MM Jazz, etc. She was selected as one of the finalists for the Made in New York jazz competition 2018, making on stage as one of the few selected finalists at The Tribeca Performing Arts Center with legends including Al Foster and John Lee for the competition’s awards ceremony. Pureum also has recently won ‘Best Alto Saxophone’, ‘Best Female Rising Star’, and ‘Jazz Artist of the Year’ categories of New York Readers Jazz Awards 2019 hosted by Hot House Jazz Magazine and JazzMobile. She was also selected as one of the nominees in Korean Music Awards 2020’s “The best Jazz/Crossover - The Best Performance” category.

She has a live album released by Nagel-Heyer in 2013 ‘Live in Europe’ and another album ‘The Real Blue Live in Barcelona’ released in January 2020 worldwide with a Spanish maestro Ignasi Terraza and his trio by SWIT Music. She holds a Master of Music in jazz performance from Manhattan School of Music (2017, US), and a Bachelor of Music in Postmodern music from Kyung Hee University (2008, South Korea).

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Lauren Sevian

Production Advisor, Grammy Award Winning Baritone Saxophonist

Winner of the Jazz Journalists Awards Baritone Saxophonist of the Year 2020! Winner of the “Rising Star” Baritone Saxophonist in the 67th Downbeat Critics Poll! Winner of the Hothouse Jazz Awards Baritone Saxophone 2019!
Grammy award winning baritone saxophonist Lauren Sevian is one of the most in demand musicians on the scene today. Ms. Sevian came to NYC in 1997 to attend the Manhattan School of Music, and soon thereafter began touring with groups such as Diva and the Artie Shaw Orchestra. She can be seen performing as a bandleader around the NYC area with her quartet, the LSQ, or LSAT, her quintet co-led with alto saxophonist Alexa Tarantino, which recently won first place in the “Made in NY” jazz competition. She is also co-director of the all female collective “Lioness™️“. As a sidewoman, she can be heard regularly with the Mingus Big Band, and has performed with countless other groups, notably Steely Dan, Veronica Swift, the Dizzy Gillespie all star big band, Christian McBride’s Big Band, Robin Eubanks Big Band, and the legendary Count Basie Orchestra. Her debut album “Blueprint” was released on saxophonist Greg Osby’s label Inner Circle Music to critical acclaim, winning a SESAC jazz award for national performance activity, and receiving rave reviews in publications such as Downbeat, Cadence, and All About Jazz. Her sophomore album, “Bliss”, was released spring 2018 on Posi-tone Records, and features all stars of the jazz scene, Alexa Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Christian McBride, and E.J. Strickland. Her versatility as a musician has led her to a variety of playing situations, working with the likes of actor Denis Leary, with Maurice Hines in the theater production of “Tappin Thru Life”, and with Harry Connick Jr. in his broadway show "A Celebration of Cole Porter". She is a frequent guest artist at many universities, high schools, middle schools, and jazz festivals across the country. As an educator, she has been teaching privately for over 15 years; she is an Associate Professor of Woodwinds at the Berklee College of Music, she is former jazz saxophone faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, Jazz at Lincoln Center as the director of the “Young Women’s Jazz Orchestra”, instructor for the middle school jazz academy, Summer Jazz Academy at Bard College, and Jazz House Kids Summer Jazz Workshop. She has adjudicated at many jazz competitions & festivals, notably the Essentially Ellington Competition at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Monterey Jazz Festivals’ “Next Generation Jazz Festival”, the Victoria Music Festival in Melbourne, Australia, and the Eau Claire Jazz Festival at the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire. Ms. Sevian endorses Buffet-Crampon saxophones, D'addario Woodwinds, RPC mouthpieces, Key Leaves, Robinson's Remedies, and BG France accessories.

When Lauren isn't performing or teaching, she is usually out running very long distances!

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Erena Terakubo

Multi-talented Rising Superstar

Erena Terakubo is a multi-talented saxophonist, flutist, clarinetist, composer, arranger, and educator from Sapporo, Japan. She is an international sensation whose career performances stretch five different continents. While still in high school, Terakubo released her debut album "North Bird," a collaboration with Kenny Barron, Christian McBride, Lee Pearson, and Peter Bernstein, which reached #1 on the Japanese jazz charts and was awarded Swing Journal's Gold Disc. Her broad experience has inspired five albums since. Recently, Terakubo has been sharing her expertise by teaching workshops at U.S. universities and touring Europe and Japan.

Terakubo has played notable venues and events such as International Jazz Day 2022 at the UN General Assembly Hall in New York, the Tokyo Jazz Festival, the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, Dizzy's Jazz Club Jazz at Lincoln Center, Smoke Jazz Club (where she led a band featuring special guest Louis Hayes), the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Beantown Jazz Festival, the Blue Note Tokyo, Blue Note New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Terakubo has performed in Burkina Faso, Chile, Argentina, Germany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, France, Austria, Israel and Australia.

In addition to leading the Erena Terakubo quartet, she has appeared with a wide variety of ensembles. These ensembles include Jon Faddis and his All-Star Big Band, the Kenny Barron Quartet (with Kenny Barron, Kiyoshi Kitagawa, and Jonathan Black), the Mingus Big Band, and the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra. In addition, she was a part of "Bird Calls" a special livestream event celebrating the centennial of Charlie Parker's birth presented by The Jazz Foundation of America. In 2023, she'll join the Ulysses Owens Jr. & Generation Y Band on a European Tour.

Terakubo has collaborated to produce a total of six albums. Since the debut of "North Bird" in 2010, she has released "New York Attitude" (with Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Lee Pearson and Dominick Farinacci) and "Burkina" (with Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Jimmy Cobb, and Lenny White). Downbeat and Jazziz Magazines commended her 4th album, "A Time for Love" from Celler Live (with David Hazeltine, David Williams, and Lewis Nash). King Records, a major Japanese label, released her 5th album "Little Girl Power" with Mayuko Katakura, Motoi Kanamori, and Shinnosuke Takahashi, as well as her latest album "Absolutely Live!." Aside from these projects, Terakubo wrote the theme song "High Touch (High Five)" for a TV broadcast which aired in Hokkaido, Japan every day in 2018.

Terakubo was the first Japanese recipient of the prestigious Presidential Scholarship at Berklee College of Music, where she received her bachelor's degree in 2018. She will earn her master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music in May 2023.

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Chelsea Baratz

Consummate, thoughtful and prodigious saxophonist & vocalist

Critically-acclaimed saxophonist, composer, arranger & vocalist Chelsea Baratz is HERA’s founder, musical director & business manager. Described by Urban Music Scene as “consummate, thoughtful and prodigious”, saxophonist & vocalist Chelsea Baratz wields formidable genre-defying sensibilities and songwriting chops that cut at the knees of convention. The music chose the Pittsburgh born-and-raised saxophonist at an early age; out of that Steel City creative fire came an amalgam of influences that molded her signature versatility and musical sensitivities. She was educated for a young age by the elites of modern Pittsburgh jazz royalty, which included Roger Humphries, Dwayne Dolphin, and Sean Jones.
Chelsea continued her musical pilgrimage when she relocated to New York City in 2006. While studying at the New School, Chelsea recorded her debut album In Faith while simultaneously asserting herself as a dynamite presence on the New York scene. Since graduating in 2009, Chelsea has worked & recorded with such illustrious names as Aretha Franklin, Kali Uchis, Andromeda Turre, Maurice Brown, Omar Lyefook, Orrin Evans, Nicholas Payton, Brandee Younger, Talib Kweli, Ben Williams, Dezron Douglas, Trevor Lawrence Jr. & Emmaline, among many others. Most recently, Chelsea graced the personnel lists of Brandee Younger’s critically acclaimed Somewhere Different, Maurice Brown’s The Mood, Emmaline’s singles Get Lost & I’m In The Mood For Love, Butterfly Black’s Lifetime & Andromeda Turre’s From The Earth.