MIDORI

Born: Osaka, Japan, 25 October 1971

Genre: Classical

Midori's career started dramatically on the last day of 1982 at the age of eleven when conductor Zubin Mehta invited her to perform the Paganini Concerto as surprise guest soloist with the New York Philharmonic at the orchestra's traditional New Year's Eve concert. The slight girl performed flawlessly with a maturity and refinement well beyond her years, and the audience responded by jumping to its feet. The concert quickly became a modern musical legend, and overnight Midori became a star.

She first picked up the violin at the age of three in Osaka, Japan, studying and practicing with her mother, Setsu Goto, herself an accomplished violinist. At the age of six she made her concert debut in Osaka, and three years later came to the Juilliard School in New York to study with Dorothy Delay. When she was ten, the Hayashibara Foundation made her the lifelong loan of a rare 1734 Guarnerius del Gesu violin.

The music world has a longstanding fascination with child prodigies, and Midori was the child prodigy of the 1980s, performing with major orchestras and some of the biggest names in classical music. She became a media darling, finding herself the object of intense media attention. In addition to her concerts she was booked on mainstream entertainment shows such as The Tonight Show and on Sesame Street, and was the subject of interviews on Cable News Network, CBS Sunday Morning, and on French, Japanese, German, and British television.

In 1986 the Midori legend grew again when, during her debut performance at Tanglewood (in Bernstein's Serenade ) with the Boston Symphony and Leonard Bernstein, she broke two strings and ended up playing three different violins before the piece ended, never missing a note. The next day a story about the concert landed on the front page of the New York Times under the headline "Girl, 14, Conquers Tanglewood with 3 Violins."

In 1990 she made her Carnegie Hall debut, which was recorded and issued as a live recording to wide acclaim. In 1991 she was back at Carnegie for the concert hall's historic 100th Anniversary concert, which was recorded and broadcast around the world. In 1992 she performed for another worldwide television audience in a performance from the Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, France.

That year she also set up a nonprofit foundation called Midori & Friends, to promote arts education in New York City; she devotes a significant part of her schedule to working on the foundation. In the mid-1990s, she surprised many of her fans by enrolling at New York University, graduating with a degree in psychology and gender studies.

In 2001 Midori was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, and in 2002 she was named Instrumentalist of the Year by Musical America. With pianist Robert McDonald she has recorded much of the solo violin literature, and has performed and recorded with many of the world's top orchestras.

Music prodigies often have a difficult time making the transition to mature artist, but after a period of introspection in her twenties, Midori seems to have accomplished it with ease. Many critics note a deepening of her musicianship as her interests have broadened.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich: Violin Concertos, with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic (Sony, 1998); Midori—Live At Carnegie Hall, with pianist Robert McDonald (Sony, 1990).

WEBSITE:

www.gotomidori.com/english/index.html.

douglas mclennan

midori Japanese; pale‐green liqueur made from melons.

Midori ♀ (Japanese) ‘Verdant’.