A prodigy who began playing professionally at age 11, classical violinist Midori has built a career not only on music performance, but music education as well.
"I believe that opportunities to explore music and arts early in life have the capacity to make an impact on a child's curiosity for future self-exploration and expression," she wrote in an e-mail.
This week, Midori, 29, will visit Chattanooga to perform with the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera and the CSO Youth Opera. She is coming here as part of her Orchestra Residencies program, in which she visits youth orchestras in two cities each year. Chattanooga was chosen by a selection committee.
While in the Scenic City, Midori also will visit classes at several schools, including the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga Center for the Creative Arts, Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences and Hixson High School.
"Our instrumental music classes are just thrilled and cannot wait to have her present," said Debbie Smith, principal at Chattanooga Center for the Creative Arts.
"When artists come to our building, they bring a new dimension to what our students are all about," she said. "So many of them are aspiring to become performing artists, so this is just one way for them to solidify what their goals and dreams are all about."
Midori is a professor in the strings department at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where she holds the title of Jascha Heifetz Chair. In 1992, she founded Midori & Friends, a program to bring music education to underserved children in New York City. The program partners with multiple schools in four boroughs.
"Increasingly, music and the arts are seen as 'luxuries' rather than as fundamental elements in a well-rounded education and essential means of creative expression," Midori wrote. "Music gives children a healthy outlet for active collaboration and self-expression and involvement with arts empowers young people and their families to discover new meanings and goals in their lives."