Yes, it took tireless practice and dedication for Midori Goto, at age 11, to become a pigtailed prodigy playing in the world’s most prominent halls. But now that the violinist is in her 30s, instead of coasting through a conventional concert career, she’s working even harder. Not content to merely show up and play, Midori has positioned herself as today’s leading performer-educator. She wedges concert engagements into a remarkably full schedule that includes chairing the strings department and holding the Jascha Heifetz Chair in Violin at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. She also creates community-engagement events in the United States and Asia through her Orchestral Residencies Program and projects called Music Sharing, Midori & Friends, and Partners in Performance.

PHOTO CREDIT: GIL GILBERT

Consider her datebook this past February.

At the beginning of the month, Midori did a week-long Orchestra Residency Program in Des Moines, Iowa. Midmonth, she joined the Miró Quartet, Marc-André Hamelin, and Johannes Moser in the first two of three programs of a series she devised for New York’s Lincoln Center that examines the musical influences and cultures of Tōru Takemitsu and Alfred Schnittke. At the end of February, she took off on a European recital tour with pianist Charles Abramovic.

All this, and USC, too.

“She’s a force of nature,” declares Margaret Batjer, Midori’s USC faculty colleague and concertmaster of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. “She has more energy and more ideas and is more on the ball than anyone I know. It’s amazing to me that she has this whole other life beyond what she does at USC, because her commitment here seems to be full-time to us.”

Batjer admits that initially some faculty members suspected Midori would be a guest star and figurehead rather than a real administrator, but Midori has shown tremendous commitment to the job.

“Teaching ties all the elements of my life together; planning around my responsibilities at USC doesn’t really feel like a balancing act to me,” Midori says. “Most of the weeks, I am at school for the first half of the week and travel the latter portion. The European and Asian tours are usually planned for the summer and during breaks in the school year to minimize the number of missed lessons and faculty meetings.”

Midori has joked that being on the road is the only chance she gets to catch up on her administrative duties, because her time on campus is so student-focused. She holds her own private class, and assembles students from all the string studios into chamber ensembles with which she performs, usually as second violin. Then, she takes these quartets and sextets into the community.

Says Batjer, “They go to battered-women’s facilities, abused-children’s facilites, all kinds of places for needy people, and they bring music to them and help teach and enlighten these underprivileged people. She’s extremely committed to reaching out into the community, and bringing this unique experience to the USC students.”

Explaining her concept of a thorough education for young music professionals—her belief that they should graduate with skills beyond just playing at a professional level—Midori says, “I took to heart the interdisciplinary style of education from my experience at New York University’s Gallatin School and have adopted it as the basis of my own teaching philosophy. To be a mature artist goes beyond technical abilities; it is important for them to value the artistic process and to see the bigger picture. The ‘person’ comes through in the music making; therefore, we must approach the education of a musician by promoting his or her development as whole person.

“The three mantras of my studio are: honesty, health, and dignity. It is expected that these principles are upheld at all times, and to abuse or violate any one of them is a very serious matter. I believe that the students feel the studio to be a safe, protected place in which they can work comfortably and face challenges.

“At the departmental level, my colleagues and I believe that there has to be a ‘general knowledge’ element of the performance major that must be provided to our students. These days, the drive for giving students business training is increasingly popular, but this is only a small portion of necessary general knowledge for a future musician.”

Midori’s practice of taking college students out into the broader world is just one example of her dedication to community outreach. “I use the term ‘community engagement,’” she says. “Musical community engagement is any activity that engages the community in music through participation and/or observation, as well as any activity that engages a musician in the community, with music providing the thread of contact. In popular terms, community engagement is any musical or musically related activity done in a group setting (small or large), directly or indirectly, outside the ‘traditional’ methods of performances onstage of a concert hall or a recording. This might take the form of a presentation for children in schools or orphanages, incorporating music programs into local fairs or family festivals, or a forum with community leaders and legislators about the importance of funding arts programs for senior citizens or students.

“It is positively crucial to the growth of a musician to connect with people in musically engaging experiences. For successful community engagement, strong partnerships between musicians and non-musicians must be established at the local, national, and international levels.”

Midori has masterminded two long-term education projects: Midori & Friends, a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to comprehensive, year-round music instruction in New York City schools; and Music Sharing, a Japan-based program that she says “focuses more on creating a lively exchange between the artist and the children, with an emphasis on the children’s active participation and involvement, as well as promoting traditional Japanese music. Music Sharing also trains musicians to become better community engagement presenters.

“Each and every presentation must be taken on an individual basis, rather than to make lump assumptions about groups of people based on cultural boundaries. For sure, honesty and sincerity are universally understood in any language.”

Midori’s University Residencies Program operates at a more advanced educational level. “It was designed to encourage an active involvement in music within an entire university community,” she says. “With musical and nonmusical activities, we try to facilitate cross-disciplinary involvement in the planning process in order to promote music as something that can be shared on a broader level. The artist visits the campus for a two-week period divided over consecutive academic years. Spreading the project over two years’ time allows for greater creativity and a wider breadth of student involvement. Two schools have been involved in URP so far: North Park University in Chicago and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Regrettably, URP was set back a couple of years ago when a personal emergency necessitated the cancellation of Madison’s second cycle and the first week of URP at a new school.

“We are working to reinitiate the program in the near future.”

Then there’s her Orchestral Residencies Program. For an example of what it involves, consider this report from Gordon Johnson, music director of the Great Falls (Montana) Symphony and Great Falls Youth Orchestra, which hosted Midori and her program in March 2007. Among many other activities, Midori performed the first movement of the Mendelssohn concerto with the youth orchestra. “She has a positive nurturing style that connected immediately with the kids,” says Johnson. “Her example of excellence is infectious. The kids in the youth orchestra would have followed her to the moon if they thought it would have made their performance better!”

Midori appeared with the orchestra in two performances, one for 1,750 school kids, the other for the general public. Henry Fogel, then the CEO of the League of American Orchestras, stopped by. Says Johnson, “At the conclusion of the concert the crowd sprang to its feet cheering in appreciation. Henry’s comment was, ‘My God, it’s like a rock concert!’”

After the evening performance, Midori ventured into the lobby for a long meet-and-greet. According to Johnson, Fogel remarked, “In my many years in management I’ve known only two artists who have had that type of connection with an audience: Leonard Bernstein and Midori.”

While Midori was in Great Falls, she gave a presentation on the value of the arts in society to local school-board members and administrators, corporate heads, legislators, and others. She also coached chamber ensembles from the public schools, and the strings of the youth orchestra. Johnson says that Midori’s residency was so successful that Great Falls is planning similar projects with other artists every two years.

More recently, Midori made a similarly concentrated visit to the Des Moines (Iowa) Symphony and Greater Des Moines Youth Symphonies. Wrote music director Joseph Giunta in a letter to a local newspaper, “Prior to her arrival, I had referred to this opportunity as ‘life-changing.’ Little did I know that my every expectation would be exceeded by the generosity, kindness, and commitment of this artist. Midori told us, more than once, that she performs so that she can afford to teach. As counterintuitive as that may seem, especially when listening to how beautifully she plays the violin, you only have to observe how she interacts with students and the passion with which she talks about music education to recognize the sincerity of her statement.”

Not only did she work with the youth-orchestra kids, but, according to Giunta, “We were able to arrange for her to visit several elementary, middle, and high-school orchestras and music classes; to speak with legislators, business, and community leaders and individual donors about the importance of having a vibrant mix of public and private funding for arts education; to participate in an interdisciplinary panel discussion at Drake University; and to cap to all off with very well-attended performances with our orchestra.”

Giunta later said, “The most impressive aspect of her visit was how comfortable she was speaking with people on all levels, from the smallest child in Suzuki Book 1 to board members, legislators, donors and, of course, fellow musicians.

“One of my hesitations regarding keeping her so booked was that this would affect the culmination of her week, playing the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Des Moines Symphony. It is a demanding piece, but I never witnessed one ounce of fatigue throughout the entire rehearsal and performance process. Her concentration, stamina, and depth were at a level that I have rarely witnessed.” Echoes Batjer at USC, “I’ve never seen someone with so much stamina, who can keep so many balls in the air and do it so well.”

Perhaps that’s because Midori doesn’t regard outreach and education as mere sidelines to her concert career. “Teaching is the bread and butter of my life,” she declares. “I feel so fortunate to have my students in my life, and I cannot imagine not having them around. Only a student can make me simultaneously so happy and angry, and there is nobody else that constantly challenges me to go beyond my current capabilities. It is a privilege to be a part of their lives.”