Midori
Özgür Aydin

Performers

• Midori, Violin
• Özgür Aydin, Piano

Program

• BEETHOVEN Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major
• WEBERN Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7
• BEETHOVEN Violin Sonata No. 6 in A Major
• GEORGE CRUMB Four Nocturnes (Night Music II)
• BEETHOVEN Violin Sonata No. 9 in A Major, "Kreutzer"
• 
  Encores:
• DEBUSSY "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair" (arr. Hartmann)
• KREISLER Tambourin chinois

Bios

• Midori

  
  Since her debut at the age of 11 with the New York Philharmonic, Midori has established a record of achievement that sets her apart as a master musician, innovator, and champion of the developmental potential of children. In 1992, she founded Midori & Friends, a nonprofit organization in New York that brings music education programs to thousands of underserved children each year. Two other organizations-Music Sharing, based in Japan, and Partners in Performance, based in the US-also bring music closer to the lives of people who may not otherwise have involvement with the arts. Her commitment to community collaboration and outreach extends beyond these organizations to her work with young violinists in master classes all over the world, and to her Orchestra Residencies Program  in the US.
  
  Midori plays as many as 100 concerts a year worldwide, dividing her time between recitals, chamber music, and concerto performances. She has an extensive catalogue of recordings. In recent years, she has devoted a great deal of energy and resources to commissioning and performing new music. In the 2012-2013 season-the 30th anniversary of her performing career-Midori will play the world premiere of a violin concerto by Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös, newly commissioned for her by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, BBC Proms, and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
  
  In addition to being named Artist of the Year by the Japanese government (1988), Midori has won the Avery Fisher Prize (2001), the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis (2002 and 2003), the Kennedy Center Gold Medal in the Arts (2010), the USC Mellon Mentoring Award (2012), and the Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum for her "20-year devotion to community engagement work worldwide" (2012). In 2007, Midori was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In 2012, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and awarded an honorary doctorate in music by Yale University. She is Distinguished Professor, Jascha Heifetz Chair, and chair of the strings department at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music.

  More Info
  
  

• Özgür Aydin

  
  Turkish-American pianist Özgür Aydin made his major concerto debut in 1997 in Brahms's 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, and became a welcome guest in concert halls throughout the world. Mr. Aydin has appeared as soloist with London's BBC Concert Orchestra, the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, Canada's Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, and numerous orchestras throughout Germany and Turkey. His festival appearances have included the Salzburg, Istanbul, Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau, Ravinia, and Edinburgh music festivals.
  
  Mr. Aydin regularly performs chamber music concerts and recitals in prestigious concert venues, including the Auditorium du Louvre, Munich's Herkulessaal and Gasteig, Hamburg's Laeiszhalle, London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, Barcelona's L'Auditori, Tokyo's Suntory Hall and Opera City Recital Hall, New York's 92nd Street Y, Cleveland's Severance Hall, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He is a founding member of the Aurata Quintet, and has recently collaborated with violist Naoko Shimizu and members of the Berliner Philharmoniker.
  
  Mr. Aydin has made solo recordings of music by Chopin, Liszt, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, and Schumann for the labels Videal and Yapi Kredi, as well as a live recording produced by the Cleveland International Piano Competition. Two CDs of viola-piano duets with Naoko Shimizu have been released by Genuin Music Production in Leipzig, and a live recording has been released by Meister Music in Japan.
  
  Born in Colorado to Turkish parents, Mr. Aydin began his music studies at the Hacettepe University Ankara State Conservatory in Turkey. He subsequently studied with Peter Katin at the Royal College of Music in London and with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater, und Medien Hannover. He has also received valuable instruction from artists such as Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, György Kurtág, Tatiana Nikolaeva, András Schiff, and Anatol Ugorski at master classes and festivals. Mr. Aydin lives in Berlin.

  More Info