[1] Miyata was born on April 1, 1954, in Tokyo and graduated from the Kunitachi College of Music, where she majored in piano.
[2] While in school, she began studying gagaku music from Ono Tadamaro of the Imperial Household Agency.
[4] She has also premiered works by Tōru Takemitsu, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Maki Ishii, Joji Yuasa, Klaus Huber, Toshio Hosokawa, and Uroš Rojko.
In 2005, Miyata performed in three songs by the Icelandic musician Björk, for the soundtrack album to Drawing Restraint 9, a film by Björk's contemporary media artist boyfriend Matthew Barney, about Japanese culture and whaling.
Previously, a piece written for and recorded by Miyata, "Music for Shō and Harp" by Cort Lippe, was sampled in the Björk single, "Venus as a Boy".