Midori’s mother, herself a violinist, first noticed her daughter’s musical aptitude when she heard the two-year-old humming a piece of Bach she had practised several days earlier. Midori was given a 1/16-size violin and by the age of six had performed one of Paganini’s caprices in Osaka. A friend sent a recording of Midori to Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard Pre-College, which led to an invitation to the 1981 Aspen Music Festival and subsequently lessons in DeLay’s violin class. Her début caused a sensation when Zubin Mehta presented Midori as guest soloist in the New York Philharmonic’s New Year’s Eve concert: she played Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1, according to Boris Schwartz, ‘with the aplomb of a veteran’. Further public recognition came in 1986 w...