Mondavi Center Presents
Miho Hazama & m_unit
Thursday, November 2 – Saturday, November 4, 2023
Vanderhoef Studio Theatre
Tickets from: $45.00
Named among Downbeat’s “25 for the Future,” Tokyo-born Miho Hazama is one of the most promising and talented composers/arrangers of her generation.
Hazama is the chief conductor of the Danish Radio Big Band and a permanent guest conductor of the Metropole Orkest and has composed and arranged work for jazz luminaries like Joshua Redman, Stefon Harris and Gil Goldstein. m_unit, her 13-piece New York-based jazz chamber orchestra, plays a unique brand of music that is bold, swinging, beguilingly melodic and, most importantly of all, accessible to jazz lovers and newcomers alike.
Sponsored by
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The Nancy and Hank Fisher Family Fund
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Capital Public Radio
Artist Bios
Miho Hazama
Composer & Conductor
Miho Hazama
Grammy-nominated composer, Miho Hazama is one of the most promising and talented composers/arrangers of her generation. Lauded in Downbeat as one of “25 for the Future”, Miho developed her signature jazz chamber orchestra “munit”. Now having three full length releases on Universal Music Japan/ Sunnyside Records, Miho has written for and expertly showcased the abilities of guest artists such as Joshua Redman, Lionel Loueke, Stefon Harris, and Gil Goldstein, to name a few. Her debut album received the Jazz JAPAN rising star award, and she has been featured in such influential publications as Downbeat, The New York Times, NPR, JazzTimes among others. The m_unit’s third album “Dancer In Nowhere” was nominated to the 62nd GRAMMY Awards.
Composition is her true calling, and in addition to her effort with m_unit, she has created works for many different musical contexts. Most notably, she has composed for Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Ashley Bouder Project Ballet Company, Yamaha Symphonic Band, to name a few. Miho became a composer in residence of Siena Wind Orchestra in 2017, and she is a composer of the year 2019 of Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa.
In 2019, Miho took up a post as the chief conductor of Danish Radio Big Band (DR Big Band) after Thad Jones, Bob Brookmeyer and Jim McNeely, to name a few. Miho released the first album featuring DR Big Band “Imaginary Visions” in 2021.
Miho also became the permanent guest conductor of Metropole Orkest in 2020. Besides them, Miho has worked as a conductor with WDR Big Band, Clasijazz Orchestra and Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra, to name a few. She is the Associate Artistic Director of the New York Jazzharmonic.
As an arranger, Miho has worked for many ensembles for concerts, recordings, television and film, including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Vince Mendoza, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Shiro Sagisu and many more.
Miho’s awards and honors include the Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize (2015), 24th Idemitsu Music Award (2014), ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award (2011), and she was a Scholarship Recipient of the Manhattan School of Music (2010). She has a degree in classical composition from the Kunitachi College of Music and a masters degree in jazz composition from the Manhattan School of Music, and was honored by the Scholarship Program of Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs.
Links
Watch & Listen
At a time when orchestral jazz is either ultra- polished, exceedingly high brow, or a pedestrian pandering to sentimental tastes of yore, Hazama’s boldly organic and singularly exciting collective is a breath of fresh air.
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