Hazel Dean Davis is an in-demand hornist performing throughout New England and beyond. She held the solo horn chair in the Broadway revival of 1776, is a member of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, and appears frequently with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Pops, Portland Symphony, Boston Ballet, and BMOP. From 2004–2015, she was a member of the Virginia Symphony and Opera.

In her Boston solo debut on Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, The Boston Musical Intelligencer praised her “masterful colorings and sensitivity to text.” Recent highlights include 2025 concerto performances with the Mystic Brass Ensemble and Arlington High School Orchestra, a series of solo and chamber recitals exploring how the concept of “space” shifted after the pandemic, national and international tours with the Boston Pops, an Asia tour with the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops, and a double-horn recital with Cincinnati Symphony principal hornist Elizabeth Freimuth. 2025-26 performances include a double-horn concerto recital as part of the Wayland Concert Series and the premiere of Carson Cooman’s double-horn concerto, Suncatchers, with Bay Colony Brass. Ms. Davis can be heard on numerous Boston Symphony Orchestra recordings, including Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 (2016 Grammy Award, Best Orchestral Performance), Strauss’ Alpine Symphony and Sinfonia Domestica.

A passionate chamber musician, Ms. Davis performs with Chamber Music Boston and the Chameleon Arts Ensemble. She has been featured in the Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Series, where critics called her “the star of the show…she played with complete security and authority…whether asked for leaps, trills, or long beautiful sustained notes” (Virginian Pilot). She has also appeared at Marlboro Music, the Pacific Music Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival.

Ms. Davis teaches at Boston University and the Longy School of Music in Cambridge and maintains a private studio in Arlington. Each summer, she serves as a faculty artist at the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina. In addition to her performing career, she is a fierce advocate for musicians: in 2020, she co-founded the New England Musicians Resource Fund (NEMRF) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since its founding, NEMRF has raised over half a million dollars and provided hundreds of freelance musicians in New England with direct relief grants.

Ms. Davis graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in Biological and Social Anthropology, where she studied horn with James Sommerville and was active in the chamber and orchestral music scene. She received both the David McCord Prize for Music and the Louis Sudler Top Senior Prize in the Arts. She went on to earn a Graduate Performance Diploma from The Juilliard School, studying with Julie Landsman, and was a Tanglewood Fellow. Other teachers include Caroline Lemen and Kendall Betts. She also holds a Master of Education in Technology and Instructional Design from Western Governors University.

She lives in Arlington with her husband Steve, their children Moon, Nadia, and Kalle, along with a cat, a dog, and a tortoise. When not playing the horn, she can be found running around the Arlington Reservoir, sipping coffee in her favorite cafés, baking gluten-free bread, and coaxing her garden to grow despite the bunnies.