Karen Gomyo

Violinist Karen Gomyo plays music ranging from Bach to contemporary works, championing new music by major composers. She also has a specialty in tango music. Gomyo was born in Tokyo in 1982. When she was two, her family moved to Montreal; she speaks multiple languages. She began violin lessons at five, following the Suzuki Method, and at nine, she took a top prize at the Canadian Music Competitions in Ottawa. The following year, she performed at a master class for Suzuki instructors in Chicago given by the famed teacher Dorothy DeLay, who invited her to enroll in the Pre-College program at the Juilliard School in New York. A major breakthrough came when she won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York at 15, becoming the youngest player to receive the honor, beginning her concert career soon after. Gomyo continued to study at Juilliard and received a diploma from its college division. For graduate studies, she attended Indiana University, studying with Mauricio Fuks and Donald Weilerstein, and she completed her education at the New England Conservatory, where she received an Artist Diploma in 2007. Gomyo's recording career began in 2006 with an album of works by Bo Linde on the Naxos label. She has appeared with all of the major Canadian orchestras, with U.S. groups, including the New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, among other groups worldwide. Gomyo has frequently appeared in southeast Asia and Australia. She is a favorite as a recitalist and chamber musician at festivals around North America, Europe, and Japan, and her collaborators have included violinist Isabelle van Keulen, cellist Heinrich Schiff, and pianist Anton Kuerti. Gomyo starred in a 2014 Japanese documentary about the violin-maker Stradivarius, The Mysteries of the Supreme Violin. She has premiered major new works, including Peteris Vasks' Vox Amoris, Matthias Pintscher's Violin Concerto No. 2 ("Mar'eh"), and Samuel Adams' Chamber Concerto with the Chicago Symphony under Esa-Pekka Salonen. Gomyo developed a specialty in nuevo tango music, frequently performing with pianist and Astor Piazzolla protégé Pablo Ziegler and his ensemble. She was signed to the BIS label and has released several albums there, including A Piazzolla Trilogy in 2021.
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