After her busy 2023-2024 season tour, famed violinist Midori reflected on her 40-year career her 30 years of community engagement. To her, she’s excited to see how younger generations are adapting to the changing world of music. As a distinguished musician with years of experience, Midori has played numerous pieces in her lifetime. Although some may consider a repeat performance as simply a rerun, she sees it as a special opportunity to thoroughly examine it. Midori shared her thoughts with Asia Blooming about learning music, refining the performance of a piece, and her work in music education.
With the lockdowns a couple years ago, there’s been a renewed interest in music and even picking up a new instrument. For those who are picking up instruments for the first time in their life, what piece of advice do you have for them?
I think as the lockdown finished, we were all going out and doing different things. We have so many competing factors and wanting to do so many things all the time. I can’t give generic advice as everyone is different. The fun of instrumental learning is how we build skills and knowledge. It’s something that actually really works over time and doing it diligently, little by little. It’s not just about the amount or the total amount of practices; it’s the consistency in the regularity of it that plays a major role. It’s not really advice, but I think the quality of the learning process is more important than the quantity of practice one could get over the course of a month.
Could you speak on the program that you’ve selected for your November concerts? Why did you decide to champion Schumann’s Violin Concerto in D minor, which is famously known as his last compositions made during his declining health?
Schumann’s Violin Concerto is such an incredible work and now that the tour is over, I miss it very, very much. This was a rather extensive tour. We had some concerts in Europe to start, including a concert in the home base for the Festival Strings Lucerne, as well as a tour in the US. We have plans to make a recording of this work next spring, and we are all very, very, very looking forward to coming back to Schumann’s Concerto again.
Each concert was very special; I feel that we were discovering this work, the details, and experiencing all the emotions then—what might have gone through as Schumann was conceptualizing this piece and writing this piece. Each concert, there was something so special in the air. I enjoyed performing and working with Switzerland’s Festival Strings Lucerne over the number of opportunities that we’ve had, not just with the Schumann in general, but with the other repertoire as well. This has become a unique and special collaboration with a distinct sense of trust between the musicians and me. This work together has been very, very inspiring.
Given your experience and expertise, how do you approach a piece that you’ve played over and over again?
It’s a pleasure for me to be able to always go back to pieces I played many times. It’s fun to learn new pieces, but to go back to a piece I played before—especially those pieces that I’ve played many, many times. The in-depth possibility to look into any particular work is so mind boggling. It’s so fascinating for me. It really has no boundaries, usually just surprises in how much I can learn each time: what I can see, what I discover each time. Rather than thinking of going back to the same piece a number of times as something that becomes repetitive, I find this to be the perk of being able to learn a piece and then keep coming back to it since each time I can discover something new.
I read that 2022 marks your 40th anniversary of your professional career and more than 30 years since you established Midori and Friends. You’ve seen generations of students who have benefited from music education. What are your thoughts about your impact and legacy in that space?
It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been already 40 years. More than that, since I made my debut with the New York Harmonic. It’s been more than 30 years since I started officially my educational community engagement work. I think that when I look at the work I do in community engagement, certainly, the situation has changed a lot: the situation that surrounds children and schools is a world that has been changing so much.
What’s important to me is that I’m always looking to see what’s going on now and what could be the future that we would like to try to achieve. Rather than just focusing on one thing that might have been successful and expect for that to continue being the solution, I think problems keep changing. Sometimes we solve problems, and sometimes problems increase as they transform. Some days, we are very lucky when we can solve them. But then, of course, we have new problems that arise. Being in the moment—not to be held back by one idea that might have worked at one point—that’s something I’m always mindful of.
I think it’s not really to say, what have I seen as an impact, but I’ve certainly seen a lot of changes that surround children. Comprehensive music education has changed, and our world is changing. It’s been very interesting. I’m so happy to see so many young people who are interested in learning more about engagement, more eager to become involved, and more interested about what the possibilities are.
I see that there is much more support now coming from the younger generation of musicians who are working very hard. They are much more open to thinking about what they could be doing outside of their practice rooms with their music. For me, this is something that makes me very happy.
