Miya Masaoka
Miya Masaoka (* 1958 in Washington, DC ) is an American koto player, avant-garde musician and composer.
Live and act
Masaoka trained in Japanese music with Suenobu Togi and then studied at San Francisco State University (until 1990) and Mills College (until 1991) with Alvin Curran . In the early 1990s she worked with Pharoah Sanders , Wadada Leo Smith and Henry Kaiser .
She was best known for multimedia stage projects. In 1996 the Bee Project # 1 was created , in which bee humming and live music were mixed. Large media attention was What Is the Difference Between Stripping & Playing the violin? , a performance for tape, two exotic dancers, and tape performed (and taped) on a street corner in San Francisco in 1997.
She has been releasing her own albums since 1996, and has also worked with musicians such as Steve Coleman , George Lewis , Biggi Vinkeloe and Ben Goldberg ; since 1997 she has played with Fred Frith and Larry Ochs in the trio Maybe Monday . She is the founder and director of the San Francisco Gagaku Society .
Masaoka composed a ballet , a piece for the tenth anniversary of the Buena Center for the Arts for choir, children's choir and soloists, pieces for chamber orchestra, gagaku instruments, the Rova Saxophone Quartet and other ensembles.
Compositions
- Unearthed / Unbound for Koto solo, 1993
- Bee Project # 1 for koto, violin, drums and live bees, 1996
- What is the Difference Between Stripping and Playing the Violin? , 1997
- 24,000 Years Is Forever for orchestra and tape, 1997
- Dark Passages multimedia piece with the writer Thulani Davis , 1998
- Ritual, inter-species collaboration with giant Madagascar hissing cockroaches. , 1997-99
- Music For Mouths , 1999
- Bee Project # 5 for Koto, Computers, and Live Bees, 2000
- It Creeps Along for Koto, Laser and Powerbook, 2000
- What is the Sound of Naked Men? , 2001
- Thinking Sounds , 2001
- Koto for Koto solo and tape, 2001
- Pieces with Plants , interactive piece for philodendron and performer, 2002
- Koto Transliterations, Volume 1. , 2002
- While I Was Walking, I Heard A Sound ... , 2003
Discographic notes
- Crepuscular Music with Tom Nunn , Gino Robair , 1995
- Compositions / Improvisations , 1996
- Trio: Masaoka, Robair, Dunn , 1996
- Monk's Japanese Folk Song with Andrew Cyrille , Reggie Workman , 1997
- What Is the Difference Between Stripping & Playing the Violin? with Anthony Brown , India Cooke , Trevor Dunn , Liberty Ellman , Glenn Horiuchi , Vijay Iyer , Mark Izu , Elliot Humberto Kavee , George Lewis , Hafez Modirzadeh , Jim Norton , Toyoji Tomita , Francis Wong , Kei Yamashita , Lee Yen , 1997
- Biggi Vinkeloe , George Cremaschi , Miya Masaoka, Gino Robair: Klang. Colour. Melody. , 2004
- For Birds, Planes and Cello , 2005
- While I Was Walking, I Heard a Sound ... , 2005
- Pauline Oliveros / Miya Masaoka Accordion Koto , 2007
- Anthony Braxton , Miya Masaoka Duo (DCWM) 2013 , 2016
- Myra Melford , Zeena Parkins , Miya Masaoka MZM , 2017
Web links
- Miya Masaoka's homepage
- Miya Masaoka at Allmusic (English)
- Miya Masaoka at Discogs (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Masaoka, Miya |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American co-player, avant-garde musician and composer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1958 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Washington, DC |