Mieko Kanno is a violinist, Professor in Artistic Doctoral Studies at DocMus Doctoral School of Sibelius Academy at the University of the Arts Helsinki, and Director of the Centre for Artistic Research (CfAR) in the same university.

She first came to international attention in the 1980s when she won prizes in violin competitions such as the Carl Flesch, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium and Hannover. Later she developed an interest in performing contemporary music and received the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis at the Darmstadt New Music Institute in 1994.

Since then her work as performer and scholar centres on the development of music-making as live performance practice. She is especially known for her pioneering work on notation as-technology, and her research ranges from performing on the Violectra electric violin with live electronics and commissioning works for it, to a long-term project on John Cage’s Freeman Etudes. Since her doctorate in 2001, she has worked at Durham University (2001-12, UK) and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (2013-16), and in Finland she continues to promote artistic practice as means of knowledge production and dissemination.