Japanese composer Ikue Mori is one of the 25 Fellows of the MacArthur Foundation 2022 grants worth $800,000.
Japanese composer and percussionist Ikue Mori (Tokyo, 1953) is one of 25 individuals who have been awarded one of the MacArthur Foundation’s annual fellowships this year to those who “demonstrate exceptional merit and promise continued and enhanced creative work”. The Foundation does not require or expect any specific work from the grantees, nor does it evaluate the grantees’ creativity during the grant period. The MacArthur Fellowship is a “no-strings-attached” award that supports individuals, not projects. Each fellowship is endowed with a financial award of $800,000 for each recipient, which is paid in quarterly instalments over five years. In Mori’s case, the grant was awarded for transforming “the use of percussion in improvisation and pushing the boundaries of machine-based music”.
Mori arrived in New York in 1977 and became the drummer for the no-wave band DNA founded by Arto Lindsay. Throughout the 1980s she began her evolution, collaborating with countless musicians, from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon to harpist Zeena Parkins, guitarist Fred Frith and saxophonist John Zorn, with whom she has developed her most extensive collaborative career. Mori currently uses laptops almost exclusively for composition and performance.