Karen Gomyo

Karen Gomyo, “a first-rate artist of real musical command, vitality, brilliance, and intensity” (The Chicago Tribune), possesses a rare ability to captivate and connect intimately with audiences through her deeply emotional and heartfelt performances. With a flawless command of the instrument and an elegance of expression, she is one of today’s leading violinists.

Karen’s most recent performance highlights include debuts with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig,  Orquesta Nacional de España, Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and Pittsburgh Symphony, and returns to the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, as well as an Australasian tour.

Karen is committed to contemporary music. In February 2024, she returned to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for the world premiere of Year 2020, a concerto for trumpet, violin and orchestra by Xi Wang. Earlier, Karen gave the world premieres of Samy Moussa’s Violin Concerto Adrano with the Pittsburgh Symphony, and Samuel Adams’ Chamber Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

As a passionate chamber musician, Karen has had the pleasure of performing with artists such as Olli Mustonen, James Ehnes, Emmanuel Pahud, Julian Steckel, and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham. A champion of the music of Astor Piazzolla, in 2021 Karen released A Piazzolla Triology on BIS Records. It follows Karen’s first project with BIS, a collection of duo works by Paganini and his baroque predecessors recorded with guitarist Ismo Eskelinen, released in 2019.

Born in Tokyo, Karen began her musical career in Montreal and New York. She studied under the legendary pedagogue Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School before continuing her studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and New England Conservatory.