Chicago Sun-Times, April 5, 2003

By WYNNE DELACOMA

Now celebrating the 20th anniversary of her New York Philharmonic debut, Midori remains as riveting a performer as she was two decades ago as an 11-year-old newcomer playing a child-sized violin. Many who love classical music worry when yet another tiny prodigy flashes across the musical firmament, and their fears are not misplaced. The transition from child star to mature artist is a treacherous crossing, and many fail to make it, sinking from the pressures of burnout and too much adulation too soon.

No need to worry about Midori. At age 31, she is doing exactly what great artists are born to do, marshaling her formidable gifts and daring to push herself further and further into the deepest heart of the music at hand.

The sense of risk-taking and rethinking every bar of a work she has played countless times was evident from the first bars of the Sibelius concerto. It may be glib to say that Salonen, a native of Helsinki, Finland, has special insight into the music of the greatest Finnish composer. But the barely audible rustle he drew from the CSO strings in the concerto's first moments summoned up magical images of Finland's deep, cool forests. Against this background, Midori entered like a supernatural creature, her plaintive melody as focused and delicately spun as optic fiber, its simple outlines carrying hints of dark lament and barely suppressed wildness.