Midori, violin
Özgür Aydin, piano

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 debut 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.

Midori makes two appearances at Carnegie Hall this season.  In the fall, she joins the Estonian Festival Orchestra with conductor Paavo Järvi for Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa as part of an all-Pärt program in honor of the composer’s 90th birthday. In April, she returns to perform Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s with conductor Masaaki Suzuki. Other orchestra appearances in the U.S. this season include the Boston Symphony with conductor Nodoka Okisawa in Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, and the Albany and Knoxville Symphonies.

In November, Midori performs a new work, Resonances of Spirit, for violin and electronics, written for her by the young New York-based violinist and composer Che Buford. The world premiere takes place at Williams College in Williamstown, MA, where Midori returns in February for a residency. The recital program also includes works by Beethoven, Poulenc, Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann and Schubert.

In addition to her U.S. appearances, Midori’s European soloist engagements include the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra with conductor Christoph Eschenbach, Gewandhaus Orchestra with Maestro Järvi, and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony with conductor 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 the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In Asia, she performs recitals in Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines; joins the Festival Strings Lucerne for a tour of Japan; and performs with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta. She also performs on tour in South America this season.

Her forthcoming release on Pentatone (expected Spring 2026) is a recording with Festival Strings Lucerne of music by Robert Schuman and Clara Schumann.

Deeply committed to furthering humanitarian and educational goals, Midori has founded several non-profit organizations; the New York City-based Midori & Friends, active for over three decades, offers accessible, tuition-free music education programs to students in NYC. Based in Japan, MUSIC SHARING brings both Western classical and traditional Japanese music to young people throughout Japan and developing areas of Asia; the organization’s the ICEP 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, that was premiered virtually during the COVID lockdown and continues to be performed; in 2023, ORP worked with the Afghan Youth Orchestra; this season, ORP works with the South Bend (IN) Youth Symphony and Joy of Music in Worcester, MA. Midori’s Partners in Performance (PiP) helps to bring chamber music to smaller communities in the U.S.  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, she began her violin studies with her mother, Setsu Goto, at an early age. In 1982, conductor 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. Midori recently joined the faculty of the Juilliard  School; she is the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and Artistic Director of Ravinia Steans Music Institute’s Piano & Strings program. She is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Smith College, Yale University, Longy School of Music and Shenandoah University, and of the 2023 Brandeis Creative Arts Award from Brandeis University.

Turkish - American pianist Özgür Aydin made his major concerto debut in 1997 in a performance of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No.1 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In the same year, he won the renowned ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the Nippon Music Award in Tokyo – recognition that has since served as the basis for an active and diverse international performing career. He is also a laureate of the Cleveland International Piano Competition.

Mr. Aydin has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras in Germany and Turkey, as well as with the BBC Concert Orchestra London, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, Slovak State Philharmonic and Canada’s Calgary Philharmonic. Frequently invited to summer music festivals, he has appeared at Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau, Ravinia and Edinburgh. He is a guest at many prestigious venues including New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Munich’s Herkulessaal and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall.

Mr. Aydin has made recordings of solo piano works by Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov. His performances of the complete cycles of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas and 5 concertos as well as Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier have been highly praised by the critics.

He is also a dedicated chamber musician, he enjoys recurrent collaborations with violinists Midori and Kolja Blacher, cellist Clemens Hagen and members of the Berlin Philharmonic. A new recording with Midori consisting of works by Bloch, Janacek and Shostakovic is released on Onyx Classiscs.

Born in Colorado, USA to Turkish parents, Mr. Aydin began his music studies at the Ankara Conservatory in Turkey. He subsequently studied with Peter Katin at the Royal College of Music in London and with Prof. Kammerling at the Hanover Music Academy. He has also received valuable instruction from artists such as Tatiana Nikolaeva, Andras Schiff and Ferenc Rados.