Midori
Violin

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 début with the New York Philharmonic at age 11, she 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.

The 2025/2026 season sees Midori make two appearances at Carnegie Hall. She also joins the Estonian Festival Orchestra with Paavo Järvi for Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa as part of an all-Pärt programme in honour of the composer’s 90th birthday, returns to perform Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Orchestra of St Luke’s and conductor Masaaki Suzuki, and premieres Resonances of Spirit, a new work for violin and electronics written for her by Che Buford, at Williams College in Massachusetts where Midori is invited for a residency. Other orchestra appearances in the USA this season include the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Nodoka Okisawa in Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, and the Albany and Knoxville symphony orchestras.

In addition to her USA appearances, Midori’s European soloist engagements include the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra with Christoph Eschenbach, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig with Paavo Järvi, and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony with Michael Sanderling, where she is to receive the Pablo Casals Award from the Kronberg Academy. She also performs chamber music with pianist Jonathan Biss and cellist Antoine Lederlin. She makes two appearances in London, with a Wigmore Hall recital and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In Asia, she performs recitals in Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines, joins the Festival Strings Lucerne for a tour in Japan, and performs with Hong Kong Sinfonietta. She also performs on tour in South America this season.

Midori’s forthcoming release on Pentatone, expected in spring 2026, features music by Robert and Clara Schumann with Festival Strings Lucerne.

Deeply committed to furthering humanitarian and educational goals, Midori has founded several non-profit organisations. The New York City-based Midori & Friends, active for over three decades, offers accessible, tuition-free music education programmes to students in the city. Based in Japan, MUSIC SHARING brings both Western classical and traditional Japanese music to young people throughout Japan and developing areas of Asia; the organisation’s International Community Engagement Program travels to Cambodia this season. For the Orchestra Residencies Program (ORP) which supports youth orchestras, Midori commissioned a new work from composer Derek Bermel, Spring Cadenzas, which was premiered virtually during the COVID lockdown and continues to be performed; in 2023, ORP worked with the Afghan Youth Orchestra, and this season ORP works with the South Bend Youth Symphony in Indiana and Joy of Music in Worcester Massachusetts. Her Partners in Performance helps to bring chamber music to smaller communities in the USA. 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, Midori began her violin studies with her mother, Setsu Goto, at an early age. In 1982, 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. She recently joined the faculty of The Juilliard School, and is the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, as well as Artistic Director of Ravinia Steans Music Institute’s Piano & Strings programme. She is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Smith College, Yale University, Longy School of Music of Bard College and Shenandoah University, and of the 2023 Brandeis Creative Arts Award from Brandeis University.