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Midori began studying the violin at age 4, and by the time she was 7, she was performing complicated concertos for audiences in her native Osaka, Japan.

Her first audition tape was made with a portable cassette recorder placed in her mother's lap. But even with dogs barking in the background, such was the power of the young girl's performance that the tape ended up in the hands of prominent American violin teacher Dorothy Delay, who first thought there had been some mistake, that it was a 28-year-old, not an 8-year-old.

DeLay arranged an invitation for Midori to attend the Aspen Summer Music School in 1981, where the 10-year-old child on a half-sized violin stunned the faculty at her initial audition.

"Midori came in and said she wanted to play the Bach Chaconne," DeLay is quoted on Midori's Web site. "We couldn't imagine a child of that age playing the Bach Chaconne. We thought we'd listen to two or three lines and she started and we couldn't stop her. We listened to the whole thing, not believing what we'd heard."

Instead of returning to Japan, Midori and her mother moved to New York City so that she could study in the Julliard School's pre-college program with DeLay. She made her debut with the New York Philharmonic the following year, and ever since, Midori has been one of the shining stars of the classical music world.

She has performed with the worlds best orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris and the Munich Philharmonic. Midori has worked with artists such as Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Sir Colin Davis and Yo-Yo Ma.

how to go

WHAT: Midori with pianist Robert McDonald.

WHERE: Hall Auditorium, Miami University, Oxford.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 6, 2007.

COST: $30 adults, $29 seniors, $15 students.

MORE INFO: (513) 529-3200; tickets.muohio.edu.