Miya Masaoka

Miya Masaoka

Fellow: Awarded 2021
Field of Study: Music Composition

Competition: US & Canada

Miya Masaoka has created a body of work encompassing not only notated composition and hybrid acoustic/electronic performance and improvisation on Japanese traditional string instruments such as the koto and ichigenkin, but also instrument building, wearable computing, and sonifying the behavior of plants, brain activity, and insect movement. Her work explores bodily perception of vibration, movement and time, while foregrounding complex timbre relationships, and has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Toronto Biennial, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, and many others. She was named a Park Avenue Armory Studio Artist in 2019. She received a Fulbright Fellowship to Japan, and has been the recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, the Alpert Award in the Arts, A Library of Congress Commission and an EMPAC commission. Her installation “Vaginated Chairs” was shown at the Kunstmuseum Bonn and MoMA PS1. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Glasgow Chamber Choir premiered her work “The Movement of Things”. Masaoka is an Associate Professor of Practice and Director of the Sound Art MFA program at Columbia University.

Photo Credit: Heike Liss

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