group ongaku: music of group ongaku

Group Ongaku, founded mainly by students at Tokyo National University of Fine Art & Music, was the first collective musical improvisation group. The group began their activities in 1958 and from the naming of the group in 1960 onward continued until somewhere around 1962. They attempted to create acoustics corresponding to actual time & space by means of collective improvisation. Although methodically different, the music that they pursued incidentally shared common directions with contemporaries such as John Cage and other involved in the avant-garde artist collective of Fluxus." -- Takako Okamoto, taken from original liner notes.