Educator
Bassoonist • Educator • Sound Artist • Social Worker
Midori currently leads the bassoon studio at the University of Kansas, working with undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students. Her bassoon pedagogy emphasizes excellence in fundamentals alongside psychological wellness through healing-centered and trauma-informed learning. She brings these same priorities to her classroom teaching, where she utilizes strategies from experiential learning and social justice-based assessment and grading. Previous faculty positions include Illinois State University, Oklahoma State University, and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Some of her proudest achievements are the successes of her students, which include acceptances to graduate programs at the Yale School of Music and Juilliard School, audition wins with the United States Army Band, prizes in the young artist competitions of the International Double Reed Society and Midwest Double Reed Society, appointments as middle and high school band directors, and performances in nationally renowned summer festivals.
During the summer, Midori teaches at the Bay View Music Festival, where she performs with the faculty wind quintet and coaches chamber music, as well as at the Newfound Chamber Winds Summer Festival at hosted at Old Dominion University. Appointed by Yo-Yo Ma as a faculty fellow at Youth Music Culture Guangdong (China), she coached chamber music and orchestra sectionals, gave lectures, and led improvisation sessions. Her other festival faculty positions include the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, Cemuchca Institut de Musique (Haiti), The People’s Music School, Bassoons Without Borders, Woodwinds at Wallowa Lake, and Bocal Majority.
Midori enjoys offering guest bassoon classes and musical social work workshops at music schools across the USA and abroad. Recent guest classes include the Africa Institute of Music (Uganda), Kampala Music School, Viktor Uspensky Music School (Uzbekistan), Sichuan Conservatory (China), Tumaini University Makumira (Tanzania), Kenya National Youth Orchestra, Philippine High School for the Arts, and the universities of Santo Tomas (Philippines), Eastern Philippines, Michigan, Michigan State, Texas at Austin, Northern Illinois, Lawrence (Wisconsin), Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Wisconsin-Whitewater, Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Kentucky, Missouri-Kansas City, Arizona, West Virginia, and Massachusetts Amherst.
