Takehisa Kosugi (1938-2018) was a composer, artist, and violinist from Tokyo. In 1960, Kosugi founded Group Ongaku, the country's first improvisational performance collective dedicated to Happenings, with Mieko Shiomi and
Yasunao Tone. Four years later,
Fluxus leader
George Maciunas published Events, an eighteen-piece set of his text compositions. Between 1965 and 1967, Kosugi lived in New York, performing with
Naim June Paik and other members of Fluxus. Between 1971 and '74, his band the Taj Mahal Travelers produced four live albums. In 1977, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company invited Kosugi to be their resident musician; from 1995 to 2011 he served as the company's musical director. The Whitney Museum of American Art presented "Takehisa Kosugi: Music Expanded," a two-day retrospective of Kosugi's work, in 2015.
