By Kyle MacMillan
Out of a constant need to renew and update itself, the classical-music world is always looking for the new, and, 35 years ago, no budding star burned brighter than Midori.
At just 14 years old, the Japanese-American violinist stunned onlookers with what would have been an extraordinary display of sangfroid for an artist of any age. In an intense performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, she broke her E string during the fifth movement and deftly exchanged violins with the concertmaster. Then the same thing happened again, and she again carried off the exchange and managed to keep playing through it all unfazed. She was spotlighted two days later on the front page of the New York Times and became an instant superstar.
Midori receives an ovation from Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Symphony musicians following her historic July 26, 1986, performance at Tanglewood. (photo: Walter Scott/Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
“The topic of the 1986 Tanglewood performance has always been coming back to me,” she said. “It’s always been talked about, and because I’m so often reminded of it, I sometimes forget that it has already been 35 years, and yet at the same time I think about how the world has changed since then.”
Today, Midori’s overt fame has been somewhat crowded in as other dazzling talents have emerged in the violin world, but her stature in classical music and the larger arts world has only grown. That became clear in May when the 49-year-old violinist became one of the youngest artists ever to be honored at the Kennedy Center Honors, which was featured in a primetime two-hour special on CBS.
“This was at a time,” she said, “when we were just able to come back into in-person performances, and it was just a special moment to be in DC at the Kennedy Center, to be witnessing all this as it unfolded. I think classical music is very much a part of our cultural landscape, and, therefore, it absolutely should have representation in national cultural events of this kind.”
Midori is back at the Ravinia Festival for a July 16 performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with chief conductor and curator Marin Alsop and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In addition, she is spending a week as a guest faculty member at the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, one of the country’s most sought-after summer training programs. The violinist has taught there four previous summers, including most recently in 2019.
Violinist Sirena Huang receives guidance from Midori during a 2014 master class at the Ravinia Steans Music Institute.
“It is always such an enjoyable experience to be at Steans and to work with the young musicians there,” she said. “Some of them I know from other contexts, of course, but I get to see them in a different setting. But what they all share is this passion for music. They are committed to their art. They are curious. They are eager.”
In the brief time that she has with the young professionals at Steans, she is less focused on showing them how to play the violin and more interested in sharing her thoughts about understanding and interpreting certain musical works—what she hears in the music both “inside the notes and in between the notes.”
“Of course, they interpret this in their own ways,” she said of the experience she offers. “Some of them take it for the future. Some more for immediate support. It’s always fascinating to work with them. It’s as inspiring for me as I hope it would be for them.”
Midori Gotō—who has long since adopted the performing mononym of Midori—was born in Osaka, Japan, and began taking lessons on a small-scale violin from her mother when she was 3. In 1982, she and her mother moved to the United States, where she commenced studies with the celebrated violin teacher Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School in New York and the Aspen Music Festival and School in Colorado. That same year, she made her concert debut with conductor Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic.
In thinking back on her 1986 Tanglewood triumph, Midori claims little “emotional attachment” to the performance itself. Instead, she stresses the preparation that went into it, particularly her time spent then and later with legendary violinist Isaac Stern, who commissioned the work and gave its premiere. “Yes, they are memories,” she said, “but they are very living memories, because what he gave me and what he also gave a generation of musicians of which I’m part of—he really taught us how much it means to be an advocate as a musician for the world, to be a citizen of the world as a musician.”
“Interacting with young people has been so pleasurable, so inspiring, I can’t imagine my life without this component of my career.”
And, indeed, it is in understanding Stern’s legacy that one can gain insight into what sets Midori apart. Stern was one of the great violinists of his time, but what distinguished him from nearly every violin virtuoso that came before him was everything else he did, such as leading the effort to save Carnegie Hall from destruction in 1960 and co-founding the Jerusalem Music Centre in 1973.
Midori, too, is one of the most talented violinists of her generation, and like Stern, much of her time is in spent on work offstage. But rather than fundraising and advocacy, she has devoted herself to musical education and outreach, working tirelessly across a variety of platforms, including several that she founded. “Interacting with young people has been so pleasurable, so inspiring, I can’t imagine my life without this component of my career,” she said.
She holds the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and regularly gives master classes and serves a guest faculty member at schools and other venues in the United States and abroad, as she is doing this summer at the Ravinia Festival and its Steans Music Institute.
Midori demonstrates her violin to Indonesian youth during a visit with her Music Sharing organization. (Photo: T. Oda)
But perhaps more critical are her less traditional ventures, such as Midori & Friends, which she founded in 1992, and Music Sharing. The former offers an ever-evolving range of musical programs in conjunction with more than 75 public schools across New York City, and the latter strives to bring classical and traditional music to the children of Japan through visiting concerts and other offerings.
Another such venture is the Orchestra Residencies Program, which the violinist founded in 2004 as a way to support youth orchestras. She typically spends five to seven days at time with each participating ensemble, undertaking master classes, workshops, performances, and question-and-answer sessions.
In the fall, she conducted a series of online workshops with youth orchestras across the country as a way to keep the budding musicians engaged and motivated. Then, in May, she undertook a virtual concerto project, performing a newly commissioned work by Derek Bermel with seven groups, including the Youth Orchestra of Central Jersey and the South Bend (Indiana) Youth Symphony Orchestras.
“I was very eager to do this project,” she said of the concerto project, “because many of the youth orchestras have not been able to rehearse or play together for about year, and this was a possibility to bring youth-orchestra members together—to be able to play, to rehearse, to learn from each other.”
But as much work as Midori does behind the scenes, it is her performances that most classical fans see and hear, and she has long been a powerful presence on stage and recordings. Although the violinist was technically dazzling right from the beginning, she has also strived to have something to say and to inhabit the music.
“I’ve always tried,” she said, “to be sincere, to be truthful, to be able to really deliver the music that the composers have given us and to be as honest as possible. I think this desire has never changed. It was there when I was 10. It got strengthened by Mr. Stern in my teens. And I carry it as a banner, so to say, today.”
Like any performer, it is impossible for Midori to be objective about her own growth as an artist, but she feels she brings more layered meaning to her interpretations now—depth that comes with living life and growing older.
Conductor Leonard Slatkin, who took her on a Japanese tour with the Saint Louis Symphony when she was still a teenager and led her first recording in 1987, wrote a tribute to Midori for the Kennedy Center Honors. He called her “one of the world’s leading pedagogues of aspiring professionals” and praised the consistently superior quality of her musicianship.
“As she approaches the half-century mark,” he wrote, “Midori retains the youthful fervor that defined those early years. She continues to serve a singular purpose to make music at the highest level, always believing that she can be better. Now, however, she smiles a lot at the audience—and she has stopped breaking strings.”
Kyle MacMillan served as classical music critic for the Denver Post from 2000 through 2011. He currently freelances in Chicago, writing for such publications and websites as the Chicago Sun-Times, Early Music America, Opera News, and Classical Voice of North America.