Midori Plays Beethoven

Midori is a visionary artist, activist and educator who explores and builds connections between music and the human experience and breaks with traditional boundaries which makes her one of the most outstanding violinists of our time.

As a leading concert violinist for over 35 years, Midori regularly transfixes audiences around the world, bringing together graceful precision and intimate expression.  She has performed with, among others, the London, Chicago, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. She has collaborated with such outstanding musicians as Claudio Abbado, Emanuel Ax, Leonard Bernstein, Jonathan Biss, Constantinos Carydis, Christoph Eschenbach, Daniel Harding, Paavo Järvi, Mariss Jansons, Yo-Yo Ma, Susanna Mälkki, Joana Mallwitz, Antonello Manacorda, Zubin Mehta, Donald Runnicles, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Omer Meir Wellber.

Midori’s latest recording with the Festival Strings Lucerne of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and two Romances was released in October 2020 by Warner Classics. Her diverse discography by Sony Cassical, Ondine and Onyx includes recordings of Bloch, Janáček and Shostakovich and a Grammy Award-winning recording of Hindemith’s Violin Concerto with Christoph Eschenbach conducting the NDR Symphony Orchestra as well as Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin filmed at Köthen Castle, which was recorded also for DVD (Accentus).

Midori is deeply committed to furthering humanitarian and educational goals. She has founded and manages several non-profit organizations, including Midori & Friends, which provides music programs for New York City youth and communities, and MUSIC SHARING, a Japan-based foundation that brings both western classical and Japanese music traditions into young lives by presenting programs in schools, institutions, and hospitals. In recognition of such commitments, she serves as a United Nations Messenger of Peace.

Midori was born in Osaka in 1971 and 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 following career.

Midori plays the 1734 Guarnerius del Gesù ‘ex-Huberman’. She uses four bows – two by Dominique Peccatte, one by François Peccatte and one by Paul Siefried.

Celebrating more than 30 years of professional conducting, Miguel Harth-Bedoya has recently concluded tenures as Chief Conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (7 seasons) and as Music Director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra (20 seasons), where he now holds the title of Music Director Laureate. With a deep commitment to passing his experience on to the next generation of conductors, he is the Director of Orchestral Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, working to establish a groundbreaking Bachelor of Music program in orchestral conducting. He has also established The Conducting Institute to teach the fundamentals of conducting to students ages high school and up, of all levels, through an intensive summer program, workshops, courses, and seminars.

Harth-Bedoya conducts orchestras worldwide such as the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, BBC Orchestra, Birmingham Orchestra, National Orchestra of Spain, New Zealand Symphony, Sydney Symphony, NHK Symphony, and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, among others.

Equally at home in opera, Harth-Bedoya has led traditional productions with The English National Opera, Canadian Opera, Minnesota Opera, and Bremen Opera, among others. He has also conducted the world premiere performances of Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain at the Santa Fe Opera, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar with the Cincinnati Opera and at the New Zealand Festival.

Harth-Bedoya has an impressive discography of more than 25 recordings, including critically-acclaimed albums on Harmonia Mundi, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, FWSOLive, LAWO, Naxos, and MSR Classics.

He is the Artistic and Managing Director of Caminos del Inka, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the rich musical legacy of the Americas.

Born and raised in Peru, Harth-Bedoya received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and his Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, both under the guidance of Otto-Werner Mueller.