The Life of Midori Goto by Nathan
Midori Goto was born in Osaka, Japan in 1971. She was named Midori which means "precious jade" in Japanese. Midori was attracted to the sound of the violin when her mother would practice it. She really wanted one to play for her own.
Midori receieved a tiny violin from her grandmother at age four. She gave her first public performance for an audience in her hometown Osaka, featuring a Paganini Caprice. She continued to studied violin under her mother for several years after her performance. One day, a visiting musician from New York heard her play and asked midori's mother to make a recording of this amazing young girl. The recording was sent to the violin teacher Dorothy DeLay in America.
When Miss Delay heard the recording, she could not believe that Midori was only eight years old at the time, and was already playing like she was thirty. Midori was invited by Mrs. DeLay to come to the Aspen summer Music School and Festival in 1981. She auditioned with the Bach Chaconne which Midori says "The song is about a dear dog who had died and gone to heaven".
While at the Aspen Music Festival, Midori meet world-wide known director Pinchas Zukerman. She played the Bartok Second Violin Concerto and Zukerman was astonished. Zukerman turned to the audience and said, "Out comes this tiny little thing, not even 10 at the time. I was sitting on a chair and I was as tall as she was standing. She tuned, she bowed to the audience, she bowed to me, she bowed to the pianist - and then she played the Bartok Second Concerto, and I went bananas. I sat there and tears started coming down my cheeks. I said, 'Do you play something else?' and through an interpreter, she said, 'Yes, the Sauret cadenza of the Paganini Concerto.' Ten years old, and she already played the Sauret cadenza like only a few people in the entire universe can do at any time! I'm talking about forever. And she had a tiny little half-size violin, but the sound that came out - it was ridiculous. I was absolutely stunned. I turned to the audience and said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know about you, but I have just witnessed a miracle." The audience went crazy and started cheering and applading for her performance.
After the review from Pinchas Zukerman, Midori career grew enormous. She started appearing in concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Midori also began to making several CDs of many different violin concertos when she as only 13.
During one of her performances on a work by Berstein In the fifth movement, Midori broke an E string and was quickly passed the violin of the concertmaster, continuing to play without missing a beat. When the unthinkable happened again and she broke an E string on the concertmaster's fiddle, she took the violin of the associate concertmaster. Both borrowed instruments were different in size - and both were larger than her own instrument - yet Midori was unfazed. When she came to the end, the audience and the orchestra erupted in applause and Bernstein fell to his knees. The front page of the New York Times the following day read, "Girl, 14, Conquers Tanglewood with 3 Violins."
Midori continued to expand her performing horizons in the late 1980s, making debuts with the London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Chicago and San Francisco symphonies and the Los Angeles and Israel philharmonics. As the years progressed and Midori's career was well established, there were fewer debuts and the focus adjusted. Today she maintains close relationships with a number of orchestras and conductors. Each time she returns, the musical and personal relationships deepen, often with rewarding musical results.
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