Biography

Mieko Shiomi was born in Okayama, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. She began music lessons as a child and studied music at the State University of the Arts in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

 in 1957. In 1960 she founded the group Ongaku with Takehisa Kosugi

Takehisa Kosugi

is a Japanese composer and violinist associated with the Fluxus movement.Kosugi studied musicology at the Tokyo University of the Arts and graduated in 1962....

 to explore improvisation and action. The group hosted performances by artists including John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

, La Monte Young

La Monte Young

La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...

 and George Brecht

George Brecht

George Brecht , born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Mobil Oil...

. In 1964 she went to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 on the invitation of George Maciunas

George Maciunas

George Maciunas was a Lithuanian-born American artist. He was a founding member of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers...

 and she took part in Fluxus

Fluxus

Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...

 events.

After 1977, Mieko Shiomi returned to work on her own compositions but continued her links with Fluxus. Shiomi lives and works in Osaka

Osaka

is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...

.

Works

Mieko Shiomi composes events with music and environmental action. Selected works include:

• Disappearing Music for Face
• Spatial Poems (series of 9 events)

Her work has been recorded and issued on CD, including:

• Requiem for George Maciunas, 1990
• Fluxus Suite (CD), 2002