Miho Hazama: The Conductor Who Leads With Love

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Today we're putting The Tonearm's needle on composer and chief conductor of the Danish Radio Big Band, Miho Hazama.

Miho grew up inside the Yamaha music education system in her native Japan. She moved to New York to study jazz composition at the Manhattan School of Music under Jim McNeely and has spent her career as one of the most distinctive voices in large-ensemble writing. Her work includes her own chamber jazz group m_unit, conducting posts with the Metropole Orkest and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, and a BBC Proms debut last year.

This week, she released Frames (Edition Records, 2026), her fourth album with the Danish Radio Big Band. The album draws on the musical language of the conductors who led that band across its decades of existence, including McNeely, who passed away last year. It's a project with significant weight behind it.

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