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Miya Masaoka resides in New York City and is a classically trained musician, composer and sound/installation artist. She has created works for traditional Japanese instruments, chamber ensembles, mixed choirs, telematic performances and designed interactive wearable textiles, as well as pieces using spatialization, sonification of data, mapped behavior of plants, brain activity and insect movement. Masaoka holds degrees from San Francisco State University, and Mills College. Teachers include Alvin Curran, Cecil Taylor, Steve Coleman, and Ornette Coleman and Pauline Oliveros and Suenobu Togi, a Gagaku Imperial Court master musician. Miya was the director of the San Francisco Gagaku Society for seven years and has also studied koto both the Chikushi and Sawai Schools. She been commissioned by Bang on a Can All-Stars, Kathleen Supove, Volti, ROVA, Piedmont Choirs and the San Francisco Chorale Society, SO Percussion, Joan Jeanrenaud (formerly of Kronos), and Either/Or. She has been the recipient of the Alpert Award, an Asian Cultural Council Japan Fellowship, a Wattis Fellowship, an Other Minds Residency, a Gerbode Fellowship, an NEA and the MAP Fund. She currently teaches Music/Sound Department of the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College, and was an adjunct lecturer in Music Composition at NYU in 2012.
Other Mountain
If you find yourself kayaking on a lake near the Fukushima Nuclear Plant that was damaged during the Earthquake in Japan, is it fun or perilous? Maybe a bit of both? Crazy? My imagination went wild when my friend invited me kayaking there, and a combination of thoughts both horrific and mundane ensued. What could possibly happen kayaking near the “other mountain?” This orchestral segment takes one through this imagined kayak ride.