Born in Tokyo and beginning her musical career in Montréal and New York, violinist Karen Gomyo has recently made Berlin her home. A musician of the highest calibre, the Chicago Tribune praised her as: “…a first-rate artist of real musical command, vitality, brilliance and intensity”.
Karen’s 2019/20 season features European debuts with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin with Cristian Macelaru, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande with Jonathan Nott, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern with Pietari Inkenen, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with Gergely Madaras and Dresdner Philharmoniker with Roderick Cox, as well as returns to Bamberg Symphoniker and Polish National Radio Symphony, among others.
Other recent European appearances include Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Radio France, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Danish National Symphony, and in March 2019 Karen opened the Dubai Proms with the BBC Symphony and Ben Gernon.Further ahead Karen makes her debut at the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra with Semyon Bychkov.
Already well established in North America Karen has performed with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Detroit, San Francisco, Dallas, Cincinnati, Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, St. Louis, and Washington D.C.
Further afield her popularity in Australasia continued over the last few seasons as she toured with New Zealand Symphony and also appeared with West Australian Symphony Orchestra in Perth, Tasmanian Symphony and in recital at the Sydney Opera House. This season sees Karen return to the Melbourne and Sydney symphony orchestras. In Asia she makes her debuts with the Singapore Symphony and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra.
Strongly committed to contemporary works, Karen gave the North American premiere of Matthias Pintscher’s Concerto No. 2 Mar’eh with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington under the baton of the composer, as well as Peteris Vasks’ Vox Amoris with the Lapland Chamber Orchestra conducted by John Storgårds.In May 2018 Karen performed the world premiere of Samuel Adams’ new Chamber Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen to great critical acclaim. The work was written specifically for Karen and commissioned by the CSO’s ‘Music Now’ series for their 20th anniversary.
“The communicative and healing powers of music are endless. The hard work we put in day after day to find more freedom with our instrument and deepen our palette of expression is a wonderful, wonderful privilege.”
