By Chris S. Nishiwaki
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

Midori. Photo by Nick Klein. Courtesy of Seattle Symphony.
Violin virtuoso Midori’s matter-of-fact affect and modesty bely a prodigious career that has taken her to the heights of her profession.
Since her debut as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic at age 11, the now-53-year-old violinist performs regularly at the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, hallowed Carnegie Hall, and many other temples of music across the globe.
This week, she returns to Benaroya Hall in Downtown Seattle to perform the technically precise and challenging, but no less dulcet and lyrical, Brahms’ Violin Concerto.
Midori opened the weekend run on Thursday night, with concerts to follow on Friday and Saturday evening, as well as a Sunday afternoon matinee.
Friday’s concert is part of the Seattle Symphony’s Lunar New Year Gala, co-hosted by Seattle Symphony Associate Concertmaster Helen Kim, who is Korean American, and Assistant Principal Cello Nathan Chan, who is Chinese American. The evening will also feature a dinner prepared by Chef Annie Elmore, Director of Tom Douglas’ Hot Stove Society, inspired by her Cambodian and Vietnamese heritage. Tickets to the gala range from $1,000 per guest to $50,000 for a table of eight.
Audiences the world over have been feasting on Midori’s music for decades.
Growing up in Osaka, Japan, Midori picked up her first violin on her third birthday, an instrument 1/16 the size of a regular violin. Her professional violinist mother was soon her first violin teacher and her debut public performance was at age 6. Two years later, she moved to New York to pursue her music career.
Midori first performed with the Seattle Symphony in 1996 at the Seattle Center, the Symphony’s home at the time. She also performed with the Seattle Symphony in 2009 at Benaroya Hall. Most recently, she was featured in a recital at Benaroya in April 2023.
“Benaroya Hall is one of the halls I look forward to returning to because it’s so beautiful,” Midori said during a virtual interview with the Northwest Asian Weekly earlier this week. “To be able to play such an amazing work in such an incredible hall is just so special.”
“I am very much looking forward to performing the Brahms concerto with the Seattle Symphony,” Midori continued. “Brahms’ Violin Concerto is one of the most important concertos for my instrument. It is beloved, it is popular, it is fantastically challenging, it is rewarding. It stirs deep in your soul and I really love playing this work every single time.”
In 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, Midori was recognized with the Kennedy Center Honors, perhaps the most prestigious honor in American music. The following year, Midori was awarded the John D. Rockefeller III Award by the Asian Cultural Council.
Currently based in Los Angeles, Midori is the Judge Widney Professor of Music at the University of Southern California. She is also the Artistic Director of Ravinia Steans Music Institute.
Grounded in the classics, Midori continues to stretch her repertoire, regularly seeking new compositions. Most recently, she commissioned composer Derek Bermel’s “Spring Cadenzas.”
“I keep sharing this idea with the students and youth orchestras. We’re the agents that are able to bring this out to the world and that can share this with others,” Midori told PBS NewsHour in 2021. “We’re the ones that are giving life to this new music. And to be able to work with living composers, to work with contemporary compositions, new ideas about how to make sound, how to produce sound, new concepts about music, these are just absolutely exciting.”
Tickets for Midori’s performance this weekend are available here: https://www.seattlesymphony.org/en/concerttickets/calendar/2024-2025/24sub9