Miya Masaoka, Koto and Electronics
Miya Masaoka resides in New York City and is a classically trained musician, composer and sound/installation artist. She has created works for solo koto, laser interfaces, laptop and video, sculpture installations and written scores for ensembles, chamber orchestra and mixed choirs. She has a large body of work for solo koto, live electronics and video. She often works with the sonification of data, and maps the behavior of brain activity, plants and insect movement to sound. Her work has been performed at the Venice Biennale 2004, the Miller Theater, NYC, Ircam, Paris and V2, Rotterdam. Awards and commissions include the Alpert Arts Award, Bang On a Can, Engine 27/Harvestworks, Gerbode Foundation.
Masaoka has been a koto soloist with Bang on a Can, Berkeley Symphony, The Torrance Symphony, New West Symphony, Toshiko Akiyohsi’s Jazz Orchestra and has led her own ensembles including the Masaoka Orchestra, the Miya Masaoka Trio with Andrew Cyrille and Reggie Workman, and collective ensembles sensor Chip with Pamela Z and Donald Swearingen, The Transliteration Trio with Amir El Safar and Samir Chattergee, Brew with Gerry Hemingway, Workman, and Maybe Monday with Fred Frith and Larry Ochs and Joan Jeanrenaud, and the all acoustic String Stories with Joelle Leandre and India Cooke and also ensembles with Peter Kowald, John Butcher and Gino Robair.
Admission is free.