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In coordination with Midori's residency in Fargo-Moorhead, a Super String Day has been organized for area string players. There are events for players of every age. Come and join us for an unforgettable and uplifting immersion experience! All about Midori's Visit, Concerts and Super String Day (PDF)
Friday, February 12, 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm, at Concordia College and North Dakota State University
Saturday, February 13, 9:00 am - 4:00 pm, Horizon Middle School, 360112th Avenue South, Moorhead, MN
Registration now closed. Call or email the Symphony Office if you still want to come.
Schedule Details:
SUPER STRING DAY Schedule
Schedule and Details Flyer (PDF)
About Midori and Super String Day Faculty (PDF)
A Blog by Moni Simeonov, who will be visiting Fargo-Moorhead with Midori.
About MIDORI:
Imagine Kobe Bryant coming to town to coach your son’s basketball traveling team. Or imagine Bobby Flay visiting your home to offer you a personal cooking lesson. That would certainly be amazing, but it’s not going to happen.
Now imagine violin superstar Midori coming to Fargo-Moorhead to work one-on-one with student violinists, speak on the importance of the arts to public audiences, visit area schools, teach master classes, and perform as a soloist with two different orchestras. Amazingly, THAT’s all going to happen!
Midori Chooses Fargo-Moorhead
 Two orchestras in the Unites States are chosen each year, through competitive audition, to receive a week-long residency by violinist Midori through her Orchestra Residencies Project. This program is geared toward orchestras that are affiliated with youth orchestras. The Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra and the Fargo-Moorhead Area Youth Symphonies teamed up to prepare their application to this program over a year ago. Midori’s program director noted, during the telephone call informing us of the extraordinary news last spring, that “the judges spent a great deal of time reading each of the proposals and listening to the CDs, and I am pleased to tell you that the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony was the unanimous choice of every single judge.”
From Prodigy to Passionate Educator
Classical musician Midori launched her professional career 25 years ago when she performed a challenging Paganini violin concerto with the New York Philharmonic, under the direction of Zubin Mehta, when she was only 11 years old. In the past three decades, Midori has performed as soloist with the world's leading orchestras, headlined her own recitals and has received critical acclaim for her recordings.
Growing up in Japan, Midori received a tiny violin when she was four years old. Three years later, she gave her first public performance playing on a vintage instrument. Midori relocated to the U.S., where she studied at several prominent music schools, and impressed some of the greatest conductors and musicians with her talent. During her debuts with various symphonies, Midori continued to amaze audiences, her fellow musicians and conductors. During her debut concert with the Boston Symphony, 14-year-old Midori broke a string on her own violin, and was quickly given the concertmaster's instrument. When another string broke, she grabbed the violin of yet another orchestra member, and didn't miss a note. At the end of the piece, conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein fell to his knees as the audience and symphony erupted into applause.
 While Midori still performs throughout the world, she also devotes a substantial amount of her time to several community-directed initiatives she has established to address access to the arts – an issue she believes to be of crucial and ever-growing importance. Midori feels passionately that people must have access to a variety of great music, regardless of their age, race, social class, geographic location, or financial means. In 2007 Midori was designated an official U.N. Messenger of Peace by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who cited her community engagement work as a model of exemplary commitment to worldwide goals shared by the United Nations.
Midori's devotion to music education involves not only her extensive community engagement efforts but a deep commitment to her work at the University of Southern California. At USC's Thornton School of Music, Midori holds the prestigious Jascha Heifetz Chair, and also serves as Chair of the Strings Department. In 2000, she received her bachelor's degree in Psychology and Gender Studies at the Gallatin School of New York University, graduating magna cum laude, and in 2005 received her Master's degree in Psychology.
about the SUPER STRING DAY faculty
Bernard Rubenstein, Music Director of the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony has held many important conducting posts, including Music Director of the Tulsa Philharmonic, Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and has guest conducted orchestras and operas in Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Hartford, St. Paul, Austin, and Los Angeles, in addition to appearances in Canada, Central America, Mexico, Europe and Asia. In 2009 Rubenstein returned to Cuba to conduct the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional in Havana and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Oriente in Santiago de Cuba, his seventh conducting visit to that country. He will return to Texas this coming season for performances with the Metropolitan Classical Ballet, performing with both the Fort Worth Symphony and the San Antonio Symphony. The Santa Fe Opera re-engaged Rubenstein as Music Director for the The Beggar’s Opera, following his conducting of their highly successful production of Benjamin Britten’s opera, Noah’s Flood. Chosen by the United States State Department as a cultural specialist, Rubenstein guest conducted the Mongolian National Opera during January and February 2000 in the first all-Asian performances of George Gershwin’s opera, Porgy and Bess.
Rubenstein graduated with distinction from the Eastman School of Music and received his Master’s degree from Yale University School of Music. Among his teachers are the eminent conductors Max Rudolf, Rafael Kubelik, William Steinberg, Franco Ferrara, Michael Gielen, and Pierre Boulez.
Benjamin Sung, Concertmaster of the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, is also a faculty member at both Minnesota State University-Moorhead and North Dakota State University, and Artistic Director of the Cheryl Nelson Lossett Performing Arts Series at MSUM. Sung has performed as soloist with the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, National Repertory Orchestra, Texas Music Festival Orchestra, Brazil’s Festival Virtuosi de Gravata and Festival Inverno de Garanhuns, the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, and the Solistas do Virtuosi of Festival Internacionale de Musica in Recife, and has appeared as Guest Concertmaster of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra in Norway. Sung has recorded the music of composers Steve Rouse and Marc Satterwhite for Centaur Records. Together with pianist Jihye Chang, he is one of the 2009 recipients of the prestigious Aaron Copland Fund Recording Grant. Sung holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music, and Master’s and Doctorate degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
8th Street String Quartet is comprised of FMSO Concertmaster Benjamin Sung, Assistant Concertmaster and FMSO Associate Conductor Jane Linde Capistran, FMSO Principal Violist Tim Nelson, and FMSO Assistant Principal Cellist Elise Buffat Nelson. Capistran also serves as conductor of the F-M Area Youth Symphonies’ Senior High Symphony Orchestra, and Tim Nelson is Orchestra Conductor at Fargo South High School. Ben, Tim and Elise are on the music faculties of Minnesota State University Moorhead, and Jane is on the string and conducting faculty at Concordia College in Moorhead.
Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra musicians will be featured as workshop leaders and showcase performers. Included in the workshop offerings will be a session on fiddle-style playing in bluegrass and other genres, featuring FMSO violinist Haley Rydell Thiel, who is also known in the Fargo-Moorhead area for her popular club Americana/roots band, Haley and the Rydells. The session on electronic music will be led by former FMSO cellist Luke Sjogren and FMSO Principal Trombonist Nat Dickey. Other symphony musicians, including the FMSO Woodwind Quintet, will perform throughout the day on the Performance Showcase which will be ongoing in the Concordia Recital Hall. This showcase will also feature ensembles from the FM Area Youth Symphonies’ Senior High Symphony.
COORDINATORS OF SUPER STRING DAY:
Jane Linde Capistran – Conductor of FMAYS Senior High Symphony Orchestra
Brian Cole – Conductor of FMAYS Junior High String Orchestra
Beth Fortier – Executive Director of F-M Area Youth Symphonies (FMAYS)
Linda Coates – Executive Director of Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra (FMSO)
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