Ken Ueno (b. 1970) is an American composer, throat singer, improviser, and sound artist hailing from Bronxville, New York. He serves as an Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the co-director of the Minimum Security Composers Collective. Ueno's artistic mission centers on exploring the musical potential of sounds that are often overlooked or rejected by audiences. His influences encompass heavy metal sub-tone singing, European avant-garde instrumental techniques, American experimentalism, and the sawari aesthetic found in traditional Japanese music.
Ueno earned his bachelor's degree from Berklee College of Music in 1994, followed by a master's degree from Boston University in 1997. He furthered his studies at Yale University School of Music from 1997 to 1999, where he obtained a Master of Musical Arts degree. In 2005, he completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University. Throughout his education, he studied under notable composers such as Harrison Birtwistle, Hans Tutschku, Mario Davidovsky, Bernard Rands, Ned Rorem, Martin Bresnick, Evan Ziporyn, Bun-Ching Lam, John Harbison, Lukas Foss, Tison Street, John Bavicchi, and Herb Pomeroy. Before joining the faculty at UC Berkeley in 2008, Ueno taught at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where he established and directed an electronic music studio.
As a vocalist, Ueno specializes in extended techniques, including overtones, throat singing, multiphonics, and extreme registers. He has collaborated and improvised with a range of artists, including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Joey Baron, Ikue Mori, Robyn Schulkowsky, Joan Jeanrenaud, Pascal Contet, Gene Coleman, Tyshawn Sorey, David Wessel, Robin Hayward, Jorrit Dijkstra, Hans Tutschku, James Coleman, and Vic Rawlings. His ongoing performance projects involve collaborations with Tim Feeney, Matt Ingalls, Du Yun, and Lou Bunk. Ueno was also part of the experimental trio Blood Money. He has appeared as a soloist in his vocal concerto with esteemed orchestras such as the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the National Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, and the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, among others.
Ueno's compositions have been performed by a variety of ensembles and musicians, including Kim Kashkashian, Robyn Schulkowsky, Frances-Marie Uitti, Mayumi Miyata, Teodoro Anzellotti, Aki Takahashi, Alarm Will Sound, Steven Schick, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Paul Dresher Ensemble (with Amy X Neuburg), the Nieuw Ensemble, Wendy Richman, Gregory Oakes, the Del Sol String Quartet, Vincent Royer, the Bang On A Can All-Stars, the American Composers Orchestra, the Cassatt String Quartet, the New York New Music Ensemble, the PRISM Quartet, Relâche, Orkest De Ereprijs, and So Percussion. His composition "Shiroi Ishi" for The Hilliard Ensemble was part of their repertoire for over a decade, and the ensemble Eighth Blackbird performed his work "Pharmakon" multiple times during the 2001–2003 seasons.
In recent years, Ueno has ventured into interdisciplinary art, collaborating with architects and graphic/video artists on various projects. He has worked on installations with Angela Bulloch, developing custom software to control mechanical drawing machines through audio input. In 2014, the Inside-Out Museum in Beijing showcased his collaboration with architect Thomas Tsang, where the software-driven installation turned a stairwell into a resonant chamber, effectively transforming the building into a massive wind instrument. Additionally, Ueno has created solo sound installations, such as the 24-channel "Liquid Lucretius" (2013) at the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City, and "Breath Cloud" (2014), which featured 90 speakers and was commissioned by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
