Makiko Hirabayashi, Satoshi Takeishi og Odense Jazz Orchestra

Makiko Hirabayashi has written catchy, grand-scale music for the orchestra, originally intended to be performed with Danish jazz’s greatest international star, Marilyn Mazur, who sadly passed away on December 12, 2025. Fortunately, Odense Jazz Orchestra has succeeded in persuading the internationally acclaimed Satoshi Takeishi to step in. He moves effortlessly between jazz, world music, and experimental electronic music and has performed with such major names as Ray Barretto, Marc Johnson, Eddie Gomez, and Randy Brecker. This will be a unique encounter between two Japanese musical powerhouses and one of Denmark’s finest big bands.

Line-up:
Makiko Hirabayashi (JP): grand piano
Satoshi Takeishi: percussion and drums
Odense Jazz Orchestra: other instruments
 
About the musicians:
Makiko Hirabayashi
Makiko Hirabayashi is a Japanese pianist and composer who has been based in Copenhagen since 1990. She has received widespread recognition as a distinctive voice on the international jazz scene since the release of her debut album as a bandleader in 2006. Over the past two decades, she has toured extensively throughout Europe and Asia with her trio—featuring Marilyn Mazur and Klavs Hovman—with her quartet Weavers, and with various projects led by some of Europe’s most prominent musicians.

Makiko’s latest and tenth studio album, “Gifts” (enja, 2025), was recorded with her quartet Weavers and follows up their debut album, which won Jazz Album of the Year at the Danish Music Awards 2021. Sparked by a composition commission from the Handel Festival in Halle, the creation of this album became a deeply personal journey for the Tokyo-born pianist. Memories of Handel’s music, which she heard in her youth, inspired her to write nine pieces that sound both fresh and reflective—symbolizing the universal quality of Handel’s music and its transformative power. Featuring some of the leading figures on the Scandinavian music scene—Fredrik Lundin (saxophone), Thommy Andersson (bass), and Bjørn Heebøll (drums)—the music flows effortlessly between intricate composed passages and improvisation, while maintaining collective creative energy at its core.

With her long-standing ensemble, the Makiko Hirabayashi Trio, she has released five studio albums and toured internationally for more than two decades. Their vibrant interplay and strong compositions, marked by a pronounced narrative quality, have captured the imagination of audiences worldwide. The trio’s most recent album, Meteora, was selected among DownBeat Magazine’s Best Albums of 2023, and Makiko was nominated for Jazz Composer of the Year at the Danish Music Awards 2024.

Satoshi Takeishi
Satoshi Takeishi, drummer, percussionist, and arranger, was born in Mito, Japan. He studied music at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.
During his time at Berklee, he developed an interest in South American music and moved to Colombia at the invitation of a friend. He spent four years there, building numerous musical and personal connections.

One of the projects he worked on in Colombia was Macumbia with composer and arranger Francisco Zumaque, combining traditional music, jazz, and classical music. With this group, he performed alongside the Bogotá Symphony Orchestra in a series of concerts celebrating the music of Colombia’s most popular composer, Lucho Bermúdez.

In 1986, he returned to the United States and settled in Miami, where he began working as an arranger. In 1987, he produced Morning Ride for jazz flutist Nestor Torres. His interests expanded to include Middle Eastern rhythms and melodies, which he studied and performed with the Armenian-American oud master Joe Zeytoonian.

Since moving to New York in 1991, he has performed and recorded with numerous musicians, including Ray Barretto, Carlos “Patato” Valdés, Eliane Elias, Marc Johnson, Eddie Gomez, Randy Brecker, Dave Liebman, Anthony Braxton, Mark Murphy, Herbie Mann, Paul Winter Consort, Rabih Abu Khalil, Toshiko Akiyoshi Big Band, Erik Friedlander, and Pablo Ziegler, to name just a few.