Midori to Return to Walt Disney Concert Hall, 4/23

World-revered virtuosa Midori returns to Walt Disney Concert Hall in a recital program, Wednesday, April 23, at 8 pm. She is accompanied by pianist Özgür Aydin in a program of wide-ranging repertoire for violin and piano. The recital opens with Debussy's Sonata in G minor, followed by Shostakovich's Sonata, Op. 134; after intermission, it continues with Beethoven's Sonata No. 10 in G Major, Op. 96, and closes with Schubert's Rondo in B minor, D. 895.

The performance is the last of the LA Phil's 2013/14 Colburn Celebrity Recitals series.

The 2013/14 season marks the 31st year of violinist Midori's performing career. The season brought the release of two new recordings in the latter part of 2013. The first is a Grammy-winning recording on the Finnish label Ondine of the rarely-performed violin concerto of Paul Hindemith with the NDR Symphony and conductor Christoph Eschenbach. The second is a recital program with pianist Özgür Aydin in sonatas for violin and piano by Shostakovich, Janá?ek, and Bloch, released by Onyx. Other season highlights include her first performances in Iceland, India and Africa; the UK premiere of Peter Eötvös' new violin concerto DoReMi, written for Midori and performed to rave reviews at the BBC Proms (one of the piece's co-commissioners) with the Philharmonia Orchestra under the direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen; and an extended community engagement program in Myanmar in December. Midori performs the new Eötvös concerto two more times this season, with both the Netherlands Philharmonic with the composer himself conducting, and with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic. She appears with James Conlon and the Montreal Symphony, with the Louisville Symphony and Jorge Mester, and with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Christoph Eschenbach. Midori does four recital tours with pianist Özgür Aydin, conducts community engagement programs in four different countries and five different communities within the U.S., and continues her leadership role at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music as Chair of the Strings Department.

Turkish-American pianist Özgür Aydin made his major concerto debut in 1997 in a performance of Brahms' Piano Concerto No.1 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In the same year, he won the renowned ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the Nippon Music Award in Tokyo - recognition that has since served as the basis for an active and diverse international performing career. He is also a laureate of the Cleveland International Piano Competition. Aydin has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras in Germany and Turkey, as well as with the BBC Concert Orchestra London, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, Slovak State Philharmonic and Canada's Calgary Philharmonic. Frequently invited to summer music festivals, he has appeared at Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau, Ravinia and Edinburgh. He is a guest at many prestigious venues including New York's Carnegie Hall, London's Wigmore Hall, Munich's Herkulessaal and Tokyo's Suntory Hall. Aydin has made recordings of solo piano works by Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov for the European labels Videal and Yapi Kredi. His performances of the complete cycles of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas and five concertos as well as Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier have been highly praised by the critics. His most recent recording is the recital program with Midori on Onyx.