Masayo Ishigure + Kyoko Morishima

Spiral Music presents acoustic music every Wednesday evening at the base of the Museum’s spiral staircase. Artists who specialize in music from the Himalayas and South Asia are invited to forge a connection between their music and the art in the galleries.

About the Musicians

Masayo Ishigure began playing the koto and jiuta shamisen at the age of five in Gifu, Japan and has built a multifaceted career that continues to stretch the limits of the koto while maintaining a strong grasp on tradition. In 2005, she was a recording artist on the Grammy-winning soundtrack composed by John Williams for the movie Memoirs of a Geisha, alongside Yitzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma. Her solo album, Grace, was released in 2001. Ishigure has performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall-Weill Recital Hall, BAM, Merkin Hall, Asia Society, Japan Society, the Metropolitan Museum, and Symphony Space, and she has been invited to perform at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and the Smithsonian Institute.

Kyoko Morishima, from Hiroshima, Japan, holds a bachelor’s in fine arts from Tokyo Zoukei University and a master’s degree from the Japan Society’s Teacher Training Program. She has studied koto under Masayo Ishigure since 2001. Morishina has performed at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.