Music Sharing

Photo:
T. Greenfield-Sanders

Midori, violin

The violinist Midori is a visionary artist, activist and educator whose unique career has been dedicated to exploring and building connections between music and the human experience. She is the founder of MUSIC SHARING, a not-for-profit organization based in Japan that also presents performances and interactive events in various Asian nations.

Since her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11, Midori has performed with most of the world’s great orchestras, while collaborating with renowned conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta, Paavo Järvi, and Susanna Mälkki, among many others. She has shared stages with such instrumentalists as pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Jonathan Biss, and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma. She has performed for the Pope, and has met royalty, presidents, prime ministers, and Secretaries General of the United Nations.

Midori’s recordings include a Grammy-winning disc of Hindemith’s Violin Concerto with Christoph Eschenbach conducting the NDR Symphony Orchestra and a two-CD set of J.S. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. Her discography includes many recordings on the Sony Classical label.

An advocate for new music, Midori inspired Peter Eötvös to compose the violin concerto DoReMi, which she recorded with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, conducted by the composer. A recent project with present commissioned works by contemporary female composers from around the world, among other ground-breaking undertakings.

Midori has founded various nonprofit organizations in both the U.S. and Japan. These foundations seek to inspire and empower all kinds of people, some by providing instruction to young children, some by bringing highest quality performances to hospitals, institutions, and underserved communities. For such socially-conscious commitments, she has been named a United Nations Messenger of Peace, while in 2012 she received the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Midori is currently a member of the violin faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music, while regularly teaching in other institutions all around the world. Born in Osaka, Japan in 1971, Midori began her violin studies with her mother, Setsu Goto. Midori plays the 1734 Guarnerius del Gesù ‘ex-Huberman’.

http://www.gotomidori.com/

Elina Buksha, violin

Winner of the 2012 Latvian Great Music Award, an honor for emerging musicians, Elina Buksha is considered one of her nation’s leading violinists.

Elina has been described by The Strad Magazine as having “capacity for fantasy and storytelling,” and being “highly persuasive in technical agility and individuality”. She has performed in such festivals as the Festival de Wallonie (Belgium), the International Music Festival in Yaroslavl (directed by Yuri Bashmet), Rheingau Musik Festival (Germany), Rencontres Musicales d’Évian (France), and the Marvao International Music Festival, among others.

As a soloist, Elina has performed with many orchestras, including I Virtuosi del Teatro alla Scala, the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonietta Riga, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra, Moscow, and the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra (Japan). Elina has performed alongside such artists as Maria João Pires, Midori, Augustin Dumay, Frank Braley, Gary Hoffman, Henri Demarquette, Gérard Caussé, Roby Lakatos, the Modigliani Quartet, Calidore String Quartet, and others.

Elina began playing the violin at the age of five, advancing to studies at Belgium’s Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel under the direction of Augustin Dumay. In 2017 she began studying with Christoph Poppen at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. She is also trained privately by the renowned violinist Midori. She has recorded Saint-Saëns and Lalo violin concerti for the Alpha label.

Elina Buksha plays a 1723 Domenico Montagnana violin, on loan to her by the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel.

https://musicchapel.org/elina-buksha/

Erika Gray, viola

Erika Gray is a violist who has performed extensively in the US, as well as in Russia, England, Japan, Australia, Poland, Germany, and Switzerland. Her awards include the Gold Medal in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and Second Place in the Salomé Young Artists Competition. She competed in the quarter-finals and semi-finals of the 2018 Primrose International Viola Competition. She is a laureate of the 2015 Stulberg International String Competition and was the 4th prize winner at the Irving M. Klein International String Competition.

Originally from Wilmette, Illinois, Erika was a featured soloist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s performances of Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote in February 2017. She has been heard in solo performance on National Public Radio's From the Top series, and has appeared at the BBC Proms with the National Youth Orchestra and in Suntory Hall in Tokyo under the auspices of the Pacific Music Festival. She performed in Carnegie Hall with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, and the New York String Orchestra Seminar. Erika has also attended Swtizerland’s Verbier Academy, the Kneisel Hall chamber music festival, and the Music From Angel Fire chamber program.

Erika Gray is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Roberto Díaz and Hsin-Yun Huang. She rose to the position of principal violist of Curtis Symphony Orchestra, having previously toured Europe with the orchestra as assistant principal. She held the Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest Fellowship. She is also a substitute violist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and enjoyed a Midwest tour with them this past fall.

https://www.fromthetop.org/musician/erika-gray/

Noémie Raymond-Friset, cello

Noémie Raymond-Friset has been named by CBC Music as one of the “30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30.” She was one of the top prizewinners at the Edwin H. & Leigh W. Schadt String Competition, the WAMSO Young Artist Competition, and at Stepping Stone, the competition of Concours de musique du Canada.

At the Prix de Europe, Noémie was awarded the Beatrice Kennedy-Bourbeau Award in 2014 (for Best Interpretation of a Work), and the Guy Soucie Award in 2017. She was also awarded First Prize at the 2016 “Grand Prize Virtuoso” International Music Competition of England, leading to her debut at London’s Royal Albert Hall. In addition, she was awarded a professional development grant by the Canada Council for the Arts and was a laureate of the Council’s 2015 Musical Instrument Bank Competition.

Ms. Raymond-Friset is Artistic Director of the Eastman Cello Ensemble. She has been a regular participant in tours of the Heifetz International Music Institute, her performances often heard on Performance Today, the popular American radio series. She has participated in the XVIII Chamber Music Festival in Lima, Peru, while her Canadian performances include recitals at the Festival International de Launaudière, Les Concerts de La Chapelle, and the Oxford International Music Festival.

Noémie Raymond-Friset has performed as a soloist with a wide variety of orchestras, one highlight being her performance of the solo cello part in Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins and Cello with the National Arts Center Orchestra, led by Pinchas Zukerman, the maestro playing the first violin part. She has participated in many high profile master classes, including one with Yo-Yo Ma at Montréal’s Salle Claude-Champagne. She was awarded a Graduate Diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music degree from the Université de Montréal. She is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Eastman School of Music. Noemie performs on the “ex-Curtis” cello made by Matteo Goffriller 1700, on loan to her by Canimex Inc.

http://noemieraymondfriset.ca/