Hatsune Miku
, sometimes referred to as Miku Hatsune, is the name of a Vocaloid software voicebank developed by Crypton Future Media and its official moe anthropomorph, a 16-year-old girl with long, turquoise twintails. She uses Yamaha Corporation's Vocaloid 2, Vocaloid 3, and Vocaloid 4 singing synthesizing technologies. She also uses Crypton Future Media's Piapro Studio, a singing synthesizer VSTi Plugin. She was the second Vocaloid sold using the Vocaloid 2 engine and the first Japanese Vocaloid to use the Japanese version of the Vocaloid 2 engine. Her voice is modeled from Japanese voice actress Saki Fujita. Miku's personification has been marketed as a virtual idol and has performed at concerts onstage as an animated projection (rear cast projection on a specially coated glass screen).
Minoru Miki
Miki was born in Tokushima in 1930, and his first musical experiences were connected with the traditional music of his region. He had no formal music education before he moved to Okayama for high school, where he first contacted with European classical music. From there he moved to Tokyo, graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1964.
Immediately in that year Miki founded Pro musica Nipponia (日本音楽集団), an orchestra of traditional Japanese instruments for which he would compose a large number of works. He also began cooperation with koto virtuoso Keiko Nosaka, developing the 20-string koto and reviving the instrument's repertoire with many new works in a variety of genres and combinations, including five concertos for koto and orchestra.
Miki composed his first opera, "Shunkinsho" (based on Tanizaki's eponymous novel), in 1975. Interest by members of the English Music Theatre Company in Japanese traditional music led to contacts with Miki which resulted in the commission of the opera "Ada, An Actor's Revenge", to an English libretto by James Kirkup. "Ada" premiered in London in 1979 and was one of the last works commissioned and performed by the EMTC before its ultimate dismemberment in 1980. During this period Miki developed a relationship with director Colin Graham that was to last until the latter's death in 2007. The most notable result of this cooperation was the opera "Jōruri", commissioned by Graham for the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (where he had moved following the disbandment of the EMTC) and premiered there in 1985.