Pauline Adamek
Embarking on a major recital tour, that takes her through six U.S. cities, the acclaimed violinist Midori will be performing a Colburn Celebrity Recital at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on March 13, 2025 at 8PM. Use this link to purchase tickets.
Midori is a Japanese-born American violinist. She made her debut with the New York Philharmonic at the age of 11 as a surprise guest soloist at the New Year’s Eve Gala in 1982. In 1986 her performance at the Tanglewood Music Festival with Leonard Bernstein conducting his own composition made the front-page headlines in The New York Times. Midori became a celebrated child prodigy, and is now considered one of the world’s pre-eminent violinists.
Above photo of Midori: Photo Credit: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.
From the press release:
Midori, a Kennedy Center Honoree and United Nations Messenger for Peace, is one of the most outstanding violinists of our time. This March, during a six-city U.S. recital tour, Midori will give the world premiere of Resonances of Spirit for violin and electronics, a piece written for her by Che Buford. Midori and pianist Özgür Aydin will perform in Oberlin, OH; Groton and Boston, MA; New York, NY; and San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA. In addition to Resonances of Spirit, the recital program includes sonatas by Brahms and Poulenc, and Ravel’s Kaddish and Tzigane.
For Midori, this new recital program is a musical reflection on suffering and loss, inspired by Federico García Lorca’s poem “Casida of the Lament.” The program opens with the premiere of Resonances of Spirit by the young New York-based violinist and composer Che Buford. Buford describes their compositions as exploring the possibilities of timbre and acoustical phenomena and connecting them to elements of place, memory, poetry, and the quotidian.
Midori approached Buford about writing a piece based on Negro spirituals, focusing on the violin’s ability to express pain and sorrow. In their note on the piece, Buford writes: “Rather than referencing [spirituals] in a literal or transparent way, I wanted to capture their emotional essence and transform it through my own musical language that includes incorporating electronic elements.” The piece includes sounds of water, wind, deep vibrating sine tones, electronic drones, whispers of Yoruba prayer, and Buford’s own humming and singing within the electronics; the violin blends with and enhances the atmosphere throughout. Resonances of Spirit is Volume I of a planned multi-part series for Buford, exploring themes of memory, spirituality, and nature.
Brahms’ Violin Sonata No. 1 may actually have been his fourth; according to a student of his, Brahms had discarded three previous attempts at the form. The violin plays the clear leading role in the sonata and the writing is lyrical throughout. The sonata sometimes carries the nickname “Regenliedsonate” because its final movement quotes motifs from Brahms’ songs “Regenlied” (Rain Song) and “Nachklang” (Reminiscence).
Poulenc similarly wrote and destroyed two violin sonatas before settling on the one heard on this recital program. The sonata was written during World War II, while Poulenc was living in occupied France. He expressed his political opinions through music, dedicating this sonata to Federico García Lorca, who was killed by fascists at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Dramatic expressions of grief and anger over Lorca’s murder mark the first and third movements—respectively marked “Allegro con fuoco” and “Presto tragico.”The second movement, “Intermezzo,” includes a quotation from Lorca: “the guitar makes dreams weep,” depicted through pizzicatos in the violin.
March 7, 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth, and Midori’s recital program includes two works by the French composer: Kaddish, from Deux mélodies hébraïques, is based on Kaddish, the powerful prayer in the Jewish liturgy associated with mourning the dead. Ravel’s setting of the Kaddish features minimal piano involvement and a melismatic, declamatory part for the violin, invoking the singing style of a synagogue’s cantor, who often sings many notes over a single syllable. The other work by Ravel, Tzigane, is a fiery, virtuosic showcase for the violinist in the style of a Hungarian rhapsody, from its dazzling opening cadenza to its breathless closing.
MIDORI U.S. RECITAL TOUR WITH ÖZGÜR AYDIN
Featuring Premiere of Che Buford’s Resonances of Spirit
CHE BUFORD Resonances of spirit
JOHANNES BRAHMS Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Op. 76
FRANCIS POULENC Sonata for Violin and Piano
MAURICE RAVEL (arr. Lucien Garban) Kaddish from Deux mélodies hébraïques
MAURICE RAVEL Tzigane
March 5, 2025 Oberlin, OH
Oberlin Conservatory
March 6, 2025 Groton, MA
Groton Hill Music Center (Celebrity Series of Boston)
March 7, 2025 Boston, MA
New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall (Celebrity Series of Boston)
March 9, 2025 New York, NY
The 92nd Street Y, New York
March 11, 2025 San Francisco, CA
Herbst Theatre (San Francisco Performances)
March 13, 2025 Los Angeles, CA
LA Philharmonic Colburn Celebrity Recital at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
This series is generously supported by the Colburn Foundation.
ABOUT MIDORI:
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.
Born in Osaka in 1971, she began her violin studies with her mother, Setsu Goto, at an early age. Midori is Artistic Director of Ravinia Steans Music Institute’s Piano & Strings program and the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
Deeply committed to furthering humanitarian and educational goals, Midori has founded several non-profit organizations; the New York City-based Midori & Friends and Japan-based MUSIC SHARING have both been active for over three decades. 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; this season, she is working on creating a video recording of the work to be accompanied by a tutorial. Previous commissions by Midori include Detlev Glanert’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (To the Immortal Beloved) (2021) and Peter Eötvös’ violin concerto DoReMi (2012). As someone deeply committed to furthering humanitarian and educational goals, she has founded several non-profit organizations to bring music to children and underserved communities.
In recognition of her work as an artist and humanitarian, Midori serves as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and in 2021, she was named a Kennedy Center Honoree.
This season, she premieres Resonances of Spirit, a new work written for her by Che Buford, in recital with pianist Özgür Aydin, and joins the Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony and other American orchestras. Outside the U.S., she performs with the Vienna Philharmonic under Andris Nelsons in Vienna and in Asia, and with both the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO) and German National Youth Orchestra in two appearances at Berlin Philharmonic Hall.
Resonances of Spirit was composed by Che Buford. About this Piece:
When Midori asked me to create a piece based on Negro spirituals—focusing on the violin’s capacity to express pain and sorrow and fitting into a program that explores diverse spiritual influences—I was immediately intrigued. However, I spent time reflecting on how I could approach this in a new, personal way. I have always been deeply moved by the way Negro spirituals express profound sorrow and pain, but also resilience and joy. Yet, rather than referencing them in a literal or transparent way, I wanted to capture their emotional essence and transform it through my own musical language that includes incorporating electronic elements and my own improvisational practice as a performer.
As I started this process, I found myself drawn to spiritual methodologies from the African diaspora, particularly Yoruba practices. I began asking: What recurring themes exist between Yoruba spiritual traditions and the messages conveyed in these songs? How broadly can “spirituals” be interpreted in the context of sound as a vehicle for spirituality? This led me to explore concepts of ancestral memory and the ways memory is embedded in nature.
The piece contains sounds of water, wind, deep vibrating sine tones, electronic drones, whispers of Yoruba prayer, and my own humming and singing within the electronics. The violin blends with these elements, enhancing the atmosphere through exploration of texture and timbre, while remaining fragmented and lyrical.
Resonances of spirit is part of a multi-piece project that continues to explore these themes of memory, spirituality, and nature. This piece for solo violin and electronics, written for Midori, is Volume 1 of the series.
Che Buford.
