Midori received the 2020 Brahms Prize from the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society last Saturday in recognition of her successful career. Due to the pandemic, the award ceremony in Wesselburen was postponed from February 2020 to this August 2022.
According to the jury's statement, Midori deserves this prize for her internationally celebrated interpretations of Johannes Brahms's works, as well as for her great support for the younger generation of artists and her special commitment to projects that promote culture, especially as a UN Peace Ambassador. At the gala concert in St. Bartholomäus Church in Wesselburen, Midori performed mainly solo violin works by Bach. The Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society was founded in 1987 by Justus Frantz and Sir Yehudi Menuhin in Heide, the city of Brahms's ancestors. The first recipient of the Brahms Prize was the conductor and pianist Leonard Bernstein of the Vienna Philharmonic. Since then, it has been awarded to figures such as baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, clarinetist Sabine Meyer, and cellist Pieter Wispelwey, among others.
"I believe it is very important for musicians to broaden their horizons and also engage in other things," Midori stated in an interview about the Brahms Prize. "Studying psychology really broadened my horizons and helped me organize myself better: my time, my thoughts, and ideas."
Midori is one of the world's leading violin soloists, having released more than twenty albums and received several awards and distinctions, such as the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors awarded by the Kennedy Center in Washington in 2021. In 2023, she will celebrate her 40th anniversary as a performer.
Midori is a professor at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California and an associate professor at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and she gives masterclasses worldwide. Additionally, the violinist believes that general music education is equally important, and in 1992 she founded her first foundation, "Midori & Friends," in New York, which offers free music classes to underprivileged children and has so far reached around 300,000 students.
As a soloist for over 35 years, Midori performs around the world; she has played with top orchestras such as the London Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony. Other orchestras include the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, as well as the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. She has collaborated with great conductors including Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Emanuel Ax, Zubin Mehta, Christoph Eschenbach, Mariss Jansons, Paavo Järvi, Omer Meir Wellber, Yo-Yo Ma, and Susanna Mälkki, among others.
