Michiko
Ogawa
小川 道子
Michiko O
researcher · performer · composer
Independent artist and researcher working across composition, performance, and practice-based research. Her practice spans spatial sound, relational acoustic composition, and interdisciplinary collaboration — developed through sustained international activity across Europe, Japan, the United States, and Australia.
Practice
Michiko Ogawa (Michiko O) is a researcher-performer-composer born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. She has performed at major international festivals including MaerzMusik (Berlin), Supersense Festival (Melbourne), Café OTO (London), Kontraklang (Berlin), Edition Festival (Stockholm), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Ultraschall (Berlin), and the Brisbane International Film Festival, among others.
She is a core member of Berlin's Harmonic Space Orchestra, and has collaborated with Lucy Railton, Manuel Pessoa de Lima, Klaus Lang, James Rushford, Sam Dunscombe, Ellen Arkbro, Tashi Wada, Carolyn Chen, Werner Duran, Taku Sugimoto, Crys Cole, and Oren Ambarchi, as well as visual artists and dancers including Angela Jennings, Lindsay Bloom, Brianna Rigg, Laurence Favre, Karol Tyminski, and Sabina Maselli.
Research
Primary researcher on Japanese-American composer Teiji Ito (doctoral dissertation, UC San Diego, 2019). She is currently writing a biography of him.
Research focus: spatial scoring and relational sound — how sound-space relations are designed, documented, and revised through practice-based methods.
Education