Miya Masaoka

The Japanese American musician and composer Miya Masaoka was born in Washington DC in 1958. She began her career as a koto player, exploring both western and traditional musics. These days, her koto performances are often enhanced by string preparations and electronic triggers, and her improvisational technique combines experimental western approaches with koto tradition. She sometimes combines her music for live performers with unusual sound sources such as amplified brain waves, heartbeats, aircraft noise, bird song and hives of bees.

 

A selection of articles about Miya Masaoka

Record Box. Technically Exemplary - Music for birds, planes and cello, heard by Malcolm Tattersall