and Online Global Forum Big Think

Violinist Increasingly Recognized as Educator and Humanitarian
Adds Speaking Engagements to 100-Concert Season

The violinist Midori has been invited by the Commonwealth Club of California to be a featured guest on its Ascent of Woman series, in an interview on Friday, 20 August 2010 at 12 noon PDT. The interview will take the form of a conversation with San Francisco Performances President Ruth Felt, who has presented Midori in performance frequently over the years. The event will take place before an audience at Commonwealth Club headquarters, and will also be recorded, broadcast on public radio, and posted on the Commonwealth Club website. The Commonwealth Club is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum, founded in 1903 to present prominent political and cultural figures in discussion of the important issues of the day. Interview subjects have included Teddy Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Shirley Chisholm, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, David Gergen, Christopher Hitchens and Bill Gates. The Club is located at 595 Market Street / San Francisco, CA 94105 / 415-597-6700. Tickets are free for Commonwealth Club members, $20 for non-members, and $7 for students with ID: https://tickets.commonwealthclub.org/.

Midori will also be interviewed on one of the hottest new current affairs websites, Big Think (www.bigthink.com). Big Think is a global forum connecting people and ideas and has posted interviews with over 1000 experts in a wide variety of fields. Midori will join the ranks of such prominent interview subjects as Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, novelist Tim O'Brien, playwright Anna Deavere Smith, former N.Y. governor Eliot Spitzer, technology historian Rachel Maines, writer Louis Menand and lawyer Gloria Allred. Midori's interview, recorded in July, will be posted on Big Think's site in early August 2010.

Midori's long established dedication to her four community engagement initiatives (Midori & Friends, Partners in Performance, Orchestra Residencies Program, Music Sharing) has brought her to the attention of a general audience, as she is increasingly sought after for her perspectives on music education and arts advocacy. In 2007, in recognition of her years-long involvement in these issues, she was named an official Messenger of Peace by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In 2010 she was given a Gold Medal in the Arts by the Kennedy Center International Committee on the Arts.

Midori's 2010-2011 performing season will begin with performances at such festivals as Ravinia, Schleswig-Holstein, Caramoor and Edinburgh, and will continue with over 100 concerts in 19 countries throughout the year. She will make her fifth recital tour devoted entirely to new music, this one culminating in an engagement at Zankel Hall in New York City. Midori will appear with the BBC Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, and many other prominent orchestras in 2010-2011, and in collaborations with such conductors as Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Donald Runnicles, Kent Nagano, Alan Gilbert, Antonio Pappano, and Edo deWaart. In addition to the new music tour, the season will feature four more recital tours and one chamber music tour - with pianist Jonathan Biss, violist Nobuko Imai, and cellist Antoine Lederlin. The third major area of endeavor in Midori's life is in her role as administrator and educator at the University of Southern California, where she holds the Jascha Heifetz Chair and is also Chair of the Strings Department at USC's Thornton School of Music.

Midori's Schedule of Performances in North America 2010-2011

Recital Tour w/Özgür Ayden: Beethoven, Bloch, Szymanowski, Brahms

08 Jul 10 Livingston Manor, NY Shandelee Festival
11 Jul 10 Katonah, NY Caramoor Festival 4:30pm
13 Jul 10 Winona, MN 7:30pm
15 Jul 10 Rockport, ME
17 Jul 10 Rockport, MA
19 Jul 10 Highland Park, IL Ravinia Festival
24-25 Sep 10 Omaha, NE Omaha Symphony / T.Wilkins Sibelius
02 Oct 10 Buffalo, NY Buffalo Philharmonic / J.Falletta Tchaikovsky
08-09 Oct 10 Indianapolis, IN Indianapolis Symphony / J.Mena Beethoven
14-15 Oct 10 Chattanooga, TN Chattanooga Symphony / R.Bernhardt (ORP) Tchaikovsky
17 Oct 10 Chattanooga, TN Chattanooga Youth Orchestras / G.Wilkes (ORP) tba
21-23 Oct 10 Baltimore, MD Baltimore Symphony / G.Varga Shostakovich
12 Nov 10 New York, NY NY Philharmonic / A.Gilbert Beethoven

Recital Tour w/Robert McDonald: Mozart, Bartók, J.S. Bach, Crumb, Szymanowski
14 Nov 10 Wilmington, NC
16 Nov 10 Philadelphia, PA
17 Nov 10 Palo Alto, CA
21 Nov 10 Los Angeles, CA
05 Dec 10 La Jolla, CA Recital w/Ö.Aydin Ravel, Beethoven, J.S.Bach, St.-Saëns
03-07 Jan 11 Montréal, Canada Orch. Symph. de Montréal / K.Nagano Hindemith
27-28 Jan 11 Knoxville, TN Knoxville Symphony / L.Richman Mendelssohn
05 Mar 11 Oklahoma City, OK Oklahoma City Philharmonic / J.Levine Mendelssohn

Recital Tour w/Charles Abramovic: Watkins, Hosokawa, MacMillan, Adams
09 Mar 11 Costa Mesa, CA
21 Mar 11 Greenville, NC
23 Mar 11 New York, NY
30 Mar 11 Fort Kent, ME Recital w / R.McDonald Mozart, Strauss, J.S.Bach, deFalla, Szymanowski

Chamber Music Tour w / J.Biss, N.Imai, A.Lederlin: Schubert, Haydn, Dvorák
03 Apr 11 Katonah, NY
05 Apr 11 New York, NY
06 Apr 11 Washington, D.C.
09 Apr 11 Greenvale, NY Recital w / R.McDonald Mozart, Strauss, J.S.Bach, deFalla, Szymanowski
13-17 Apr 11 Quad Cities, IA Quad Cities Symph. & Youth Orch. M.R.Smith (ORP) Beethoven

For more information about Midori, call 831-620-1332
and visit www.GoToMidori.com and www.kathrynkingmedia.com

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