Gotori Midori's Biography

Midori Gotō Midori Gotō is a Japanese American violinist born on October 25, 1971 in Osaka, Japan. Her mother, Setsu Gotō found out about Midori’s love for music at the age of two when Midori was singing a piece by Bach that she had heard few days ago. She had started taking piano lessons first but quit within three months. Then on her third birthday, her grandmother gave her a 1/16 size violin, then her mother decided to teach her the violin. Midori gave her first public performance at the age of six, playing a piece from the 24 Caprices of Paganini, in Osaka, Japan. In 1982, she and her mother moved to New York City where Midori started her studies with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard Pre-College. For her audition piece, Midori performed the 13-minute-long Chaconne by Bach. In the same year, she made her concert debut with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta (a conductor with whom she would record many concertos on the Sony Classical label). In 1986 She had her legendary performance at Tanglewood – during the performance, she broke the E-string on her violin twice; she had to borrow violins from the concertmaster and associate concertmaster in order to finish the piece and had Leonard Bernstein, the conductor, kneeling before her in awe. From this performance, she got herself on the front page of the New York Times with the headline: "Girl, 14, Conquers Tanglewood with 3 Violins." When Midori became 15 years old, she decided to leave the Juilliard Pre-College. In 1992, about five years later, she formed Midori & Friends, a non-profit organization that aims to bring quality music education to inner-city children in New York City. In 2001, Midori received the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize. With the prize money, she started a foundation program called Partners in Performance. Midori received the 25th Suntory Music Award in 1993. In 2000, Midori graduated from the Gallatin School at New York University with a degree in psychology and earning a

Bibliography: http://www.gotomidori.com/english/biography.html http://www.sheilascorner.com/midori.html