Koichi Makigami

Liberating voices from singing and narrating,

Never imitating musical instruments,

Never making shallow antics,

Never merely sporting techniques,

Searching genuinely for the world where voices themselves have principal roles.

The voice chord is burning.

It makes a unique sound with the help of

the mouth and nasal apertures and the root of the tongue,

and transforms the airy bouquet,

which the soul collected from somewhere,

into the thing you can perceive by your ear.

Koichi Makigami is a musician, performer, poet, improviser, and composer. He is active in a wide range of fields including music, voice expression, poetry, and theater, and has been an event organizer and producer since the mid-1970s. He is the leader and vocalist of the band Hikashu, which he founded in 1978. As a solo performer, Makigami has a distinctive style that combines unique voice and extended vocal techniques with musical instruments, such as the theremin. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays the coronet, shakuhachi, mouth harp, and bass, among other instruments.

Makigami performed Manga Scrolls (2008), a piece by Christian Marclay, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2022, and at Yokohama Trienniale in in Japan in 2011. The hour voice piece is performed from handscrolls of cartoon collages which act as a graphic score, and was composed from the onomatopoeias found in manga—a form of serialized comics originally from Japan. 

Makigami is a long-time practitioner of Siberian throat singing from the Tuva Republic, known as Khoomei. He is committed to the cultural exchange between Japan and Siberia. In 2017, he won first prize at the International Festival “Khoomei in the Center of Asia” in Kyzyl, Tuva. Makigami has also won the 2020 Ooka Makoto Award for his collection of poetry Sikou No Mousou (2019). 

He has released several albums including Koedarake (Tzadik, 2005), Kuchinoha (Tzadik, 1995), Koroshi No Blues (Toshiba, 1992), and Minzoku No Saiten (Toshiba, 1982). His writing has been published in several books, including Noukou na Niji wo Matagu (collected poems) (Sayusha, 2023), Shikou No Mousou (collected poems) (Shoshi Yamada, 2019), and The World of Richard Foreman (Keiso Shobo, 2000).

Makigami is the Artistic Director of Atami Music Future (since 2019), and the Artistic Director of JAZZ ART SENGAWA (since 2008). He is also the Director of Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers, and Publishers (JASRAC).