about

(photo credit: william cochran)

Hiroya Miura (三浦寛也), a native of Sendai, Japan, has been active as a composer and performer in North America. Acclaimed by Allan Kozinn of New York Times as “acidic and tactile,” Miura’s compositions explore “the continuous change of balance” amongst the traditions, players, instruments, and sound objects. For the 2019-20 season, Miura has composed micro-opera, Sharaku Unframed, for shamisen player Hidejiro Honjoh and San Francisco’s Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, and Galactic Monarchs, a shakuhachi concerto, for John Kaizan Neptune and Prague’s BERG Orchestra. He was awarded Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Arts and Literary Arts residency, la Napoule Art Foundation residency, HB Studio Residency, and Willapa Bay AiR residency, amongst others.

Miura composed works for Speculum Musicae, New York New Music Ensemble, American Composers Orchestra, Juilliard Percussion Ensemble, le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, fama Q, Momenta Quartet, Trio SR9, and members of Reigakusha (gagaku ensemble based in Tokyo), which were presented in venues and festivals such as Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, Tokyo Opera City, Miller Theater, Smithsonian Institution’s Freer Gallery, Tanglewood, Ostrava Days (Czech Republic), Vacances Percutantes (Marmande, France), and Havana Contemporary Music Festival (Cuba). He is also a founding member of the electronic improvisation unit, No One Receiving, whose debut album from the Grain of Sound has won critical acclaim in Europe and the United States.  He holds D.M.A. degree from Columbia University, and he is Associate Professor of music at Bates College, where he teaches music theory and composition, and directs the college orchestra. He is Artistic Director of Columbia University’s IMJS/Japanese Cultural Heritage Initiatives, and serves on Advisory Board for the Composers Conference.