Fire Horse Suite is set for release on November 27th, 2026.

For Hirabayashi, the Fire Horse carries a personal significance: born in 1966, she herself is a Fire Horse, a cycle that returns only once every 60 years. The suite takes this as a starting point for a broader reflection on nature, life and humanity’s place within something larger, drawing on the Japanese belief in sacred spirits inhabiting mountains, stones, the moon, ancestors and other aspects of the natural world.

Hirabayashi’s compositions balance written structure with space for spontaneity, allowing the nineteen musicians of Odense Jazz Orchestra to retain their individual voices while functioning as a single ensemble. Rather than foregrounding individual virtuosity, the music is built around listening, trust and collective creativity. Takeishi’s distinctive percussion provides an organic thread throughout, connecting the different musical traditions through colour, texture and rhythm.

The project brings Hirabayashi’s intimate compositional voice together with the breadth of a large ensemble. Based in Copenhagen since 1990, she has released ten studio albums as a leader and worked with musicians including Marilyn Mazur, Enrico Rava, Norma Winstone and Nils Petter Molvær. Her latest album, Gifts (enja, 2025), followed the award-winning first album by her quartet Weavers, while her trio’s Meteora was named among DownBeat’s Best Albums of 2023. Odense Jazz Orchestra, the leading big band in Southern Denmark, has collaborated with artists including Stacey Kent, Ingrid Jensen, Nikki Iles and Richard Bona. Takeishi, a native of Mito, Japan, has worked across jazz, contemporary classical, avant-garde, electronic and world music since moving to New York in 1991.

Fire Horse Suite will be released as an audiovisual project, combining the album with a concert film capturing the performance and interaction between the musicians. At its centre is the idea of creating music that can move beyond individual egos: a large ensemble listening, responding and finding its own collective voice.