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.
Following a highly successful 2024/25 season which included debuts with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Orchestra RAI Torino, and the Helsinki, Oslo, and Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as returns to the Baltimore, Indianapolis, Montreal, Toronto, Sydney, and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, Karen’s 2025/26 season will bring more highly anticipated appearances. She returns to the New York Philharmonic, the New World Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Residentie Orkest in The Hague, and the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. She will also make debuts with the SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart, Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, Malaysian Philharmonic, and the Hyogo Performing Arts Centre Orchestra.
Other recent highlights include debuts with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under Semyon Bychkov, the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra with Jakub Hrůša, and the Czech Philharmonic, as well as returns to the Dallas Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
As a passionate chamber musician, Karen has performed with artists such as Leif Ove Andsnes, James Ehnes, the late Heinrich Schiff, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth, and guitarist Ismo Eskelinen, with whom she recorded the duo album Carnival on BIS Records. She is also a champion of the nuevo tango music of Astor Piazzolla, having collaborated with Piazzolla’s longtime pianist and tango legend Pablo Ziegler, and released A Piazzolla Trilogy (BIS Records), recorded with the Strings of Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and guitarist Stephanie Jones in 2019.
Born in Tokyo, Karen began her musical career in Montréal 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 the New England Conservatory with Mauricio Fuks and Donald Weilerstein, respectively. She also studied privately for a formative period in Vienna with Heinrich Schiff.