is a Japanese singer of enka

Enka

is a popular Japanese music genre considered to resemble traditional Japanese music stylistically. Modern enka, however, is a relatively recent musical form which arose in the context of such postwar expressions of modern Japanese nonmaterial nationalism as nihonjinron, while adopting a more...

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Born Harumi Kitamura in Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

, she made her debut in 1964. Her popularity has lasted: She makes frequent appearances in the annual television spectacular Kōhaku Uta Gassen

Kohaku Uta Gassen

, more commonly known as simply Kōhaku, is an annual music show on New Year's Eve produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK and broadcast on both television and radio, nationally and internationally by NHK's networks and some overseas broadcasters which bought the program...

and has acted in a number of films.

Further reading

Miyako Harumi. Messēji / The Message. Tokyo: Juritsusha, 2006. ISBN 4-901769-41-3 About half this book consists of quotations from interviews with Miyako, and the other half of color photographs by Hiroh Kikai

Hiroh Kikai

is a Japanese photographer best known within Japan for three series of monochrome photographs: scenes of buildings in and close to Tokyo, portraits of people in the Asakusa area of Tokyo, and rural and town life in India...

. Despite the English alternative title, the text is all in Japanese.