Photo by Timothy Greenfield Sanders.
Midori is a visionary artist, activist and educator who explores and builds connections between music and the human experience. In the four decades since her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11, the “simply magical” (Houston Chronicle) violinist has performed with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras and has collaborated with world-renowned musicians including Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, and many others. Midori is the Artistic Director of Ravinia Steans Music Institute’s Piano & Strings program; summer 2024 is her first year in that role.
This season, she premieres Spirituals — a new work written for her by Che Buford — on a recital program, with pianist Özgür Aydin, at the Edinburgh Festival; the 92nd Street Y, New York; the Celebrity Series of Boston; San Francisco Performances; and the Colburn Celebrity Series. Other highlights of Midori’s 2024–2025 season include appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Louisville Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and Oklahoma City Philharmonic.
Outside the U.S., she performs with the Vienna Philharmonic under Andris Nelsons in Vienna and on tour in Japan and Korea (Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto); she appears twice in the spring of 2025 at the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, with the German National Youth Orchestra in May, performing Glanert’s Second Violin Concerto, and with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO) in June, performing Dvořák’s Violin Concerto. She also joins the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Jonathan Nott, performing Sibelius’s Violin Concerto on a tour of Spain, and has concert appearances in Geneva, Köln and Nürnberg, as well as Mumbai, Istanbul, Izmir and Colombo.
Deeply committed to furthering humanitarian and educational goals, Midori has founded several non-profit organizations; the New York City-based Midori & Friends and Japan-based MUSIC SHARING have both been active for over three decades. For the Orchestra Residencies Program (ORP), which supports youth orchestras, Midori commissioned a new work from composer Derek Bermel, Spring Cadenzas, that was premiered virtually during the COVID lockdown and continues to be performed; this season, she is working on creating a video recording of the work to be accompanied by a tutorial. ORP also worked recently with the Afghan Youth Orchestra, which relocated to Portugal in order to continue operating. Midori’s Partners in Performance (PiP) helps to bring chamber music to smaller communities in the U.S. In recognition of her work as an artist and humanitarian, she serves as a United Nations Messenger of Peace and was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2021.
Born in Osaka in 1971, she began her violin studies with her mother, Setsu Goto, at an early age. In 1982, conductor Zubin Mehta invited the then 11-year-old Midori to perform with the New York Philharmonic in the orchestra’s annual New Year’s Eve concert, where the foundation was laid for her subsequent career. Midori is the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Smith College, Yale University, Longy School of Music and Shenandoah University, and of the 2023 Brandeis Creative Arts Award from Brandeis University.
She plays the 1734 Guarnerius del Gesù ‘ex-Huberman’ and uses four bows – two by Dominique Peccatte, one by François Peccatte and one by Paul Siefried.
