--- title: The Most Exceptional Musician: Midori Goto description: She has sold out music halls since the age of 11. Now 43, she is focused on music education and philanthropy canonical: https://time.com/3935298/midori-goto/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-25T11:19:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T08:31:41.786Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The Most Exceptional Musician: Midori Goto og:description: She has sold out music halls since the age of 11. Now 43, she is focused on music education and philanthropy og:url: https://time.com/3935298/midori-goto/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Most Exceptional Musician: Midori Goto twitter:description: She has sold out music halls since the age of 11. Now 43, she is focused on music education and philanthropy twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Most Exceptional Musician: Midori Goto by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Jun 25, 2015 11:19 AM CUT by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Jun 25, 2015 11:19 AM CUT Midori became One of the youngest professional classical string musicians of our time, mastering some of the most difficult violin pieces before adolescence. The prodigy continues to play solo performances with world-class orchestras. In her early 20s, Midori founded her first charitable foundation to promote music education. Today, in addition to juggling concert tours and running four nonprofit music organizations, Midori is a violin chair at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, which enrolls more than 1,000 students. 5 Hours a day spent practicing as a child; today she practices 4 to 6 hours a day 1/16 Size of the first violin Midori received from her mother, at age 3, compared with a full-size instrument 1734 Year her Guarnerius del Gesù violin was made 16 CD releases 3 Years of preparation for each new repertoire or music project 100 Headline concerts per year 6 Hours of sleep per night 3 Violins needed to play at her Tanglewood debut at age 14, after twice breaking the E string 23 Minutes to play Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1 as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic in 1982 at age 11 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3935298/midori-goto/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3935298/midori-goto/"},"headline":"The Most Exceptional Musician: Midori Goto","datePublished":"2015-06-25T11:19:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T08:31:41.786Z","description":"She has sold out music halls since the age of 11. Now 43, she is focused on music education and philanthropy","url":"https://time.com/3935298/midori-goto/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3935298/midori-goto/","name":"The Most Exceptional Musician: Midori Goto"}}]}] ```