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Midori Premieres
Che Buford’s Resonances of Spirit
on US Recital Tour
Özgür Aydin, Piano
March 5–13, 2025
Oberlin, Groton, Boston, New York,
San Francisco, Los Angeles
Music by Brahms, Poulenc, and Ravel
Her account of the Brahms Concerto encompassed both grandeur and intimacy. Midori seemed to shun the more comfortable ways of shaping a phrase, driven by a provocatively introspective approach.
--The Strad
New York, NY: February 7, 2025 -- Midori, a Kennedy Center Honoree and United Nations Messenger for Peace, is one of the most outstanding violinists of our time. This March, Midori gives the world premiere of Resonances of Spirit for violin and electronics, written for her by Che Buford, on a six-city U.S. recital tour. 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. The New York Times described a performance by Midori and Aydin as “a master class on color and nuance.”
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.
"Midori’s interpretation, in a word, was simply magical... No encore was needed; the audience was already speechless."
--Houston Chronicle
Brahms’s 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’s 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.
More than 30 years after bursting on the scene as a pint-size violin prodigy, Midori continues to set an example for how to be an engaged musician in the modern world."
--San Francisco Chronicle
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’s violin concerto DoReMi (2012).
"Midori’s muscular playing and virtuosic agility are a sight to behold. She gets into her performance with her entire physique, delving into her instrument as if she has toextract the sound from her 1734 Guarneri del Gesù by force."
--San Francisco Classical Voice
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
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.
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.
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, she serves as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and in 2021, she was named a Kennedy Center Honoree.
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.
Midori Full Bio
Download high-resolution photos of Midori HERE.
ABOUT ÖZGÜR AYDIN
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 Classics.
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.
Mr. Aydin lives in Berlin and teaches at the University of the Arts.