Biography

Midori Goto, strings professor and the Jascha Heifetz Chair in Music, is an internationally-renowned musician whose performing career has spanned nearly 25 years. She earned her Master’s degree in Psychology from New York University in 2005, and her first teaching position was at the Manhattan School of Music, where she was on the violin faculty from 2001-2006. Midori has been renowned not only for her skills onstage, but also for her devotion to developing new educational and community-based outreach programs. She has taken an active role in availing musical opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds through her three foundations: Midori & Friends and Partners in Performance in the U.S., and Music Sharing in Japan; as well as in annual, individually-designed residency projects with youth orchestras and universities.
 
The 2006-2007 academic year marks Midori’s first as a full-time faculty member at Thornton. As such, she is fully engaged in the university life and can frequently be seen and heard with her students on campus. One of her first initiatives at USC was to create the Midori Center for Community Engagement . She co-directs the Center, which provides resources on community work, and aims to train and educate future generations of musicians to connect effectively with audiences beyond the concert hall. In the private lessons and chamber music coachings, Midori employs a hands-on philosophy with her students. In chamber coachings, she finds that making music together is one of the most effective ways of the teaching-learning interplay. She firmly believes in an interdisciplinary approach to music learning, in which the lessons go beyond instrument instruction to enhance students’ growth and development as human beings and musicians.

For more information, please visit Midori's website.