Mayumi Miyata is a Japanese musician who was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1954. She achieved early professional recognition in 1979 after performing gagaku at the National Theatre and is famous for specializing in contemporary classical music for the shō and for utilizing a specially constructed instrument with extra pipes for chromaticism. Miyata graduated from the Kunitachi College of Music as a piano major and studied traditional music under Ono Tadamaro. Her career gained international prominence following a 1990 meeting with the composer John Cage, who subsequently authored multiple works for her. She has also premiered compositions by Tōru Takemitsu, Toshi Ichiyanagi, and Toshio Hosokawa. Her discography includes the recordings Die Kreuzung (1996), Two 4 (2001), and One 9 (2003). In 2005, she collaborated with the musician Björk on the soundtrack for the film Drawing Restraint 9 and appeared in the production playing the shō. Miyata also performed the Japanese national anthem, "Kimigayo", during the opening ceremony of the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. For her contributions to music, she received the Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists (1986) and the Medal with Purple Ribbon (2018). Since 2021, she has served as a guest professor at the Kunitachi College of Music.