At the age of 13, Ryu appeared an unprecedented series of ten sold-out recitals at the Casals Hall in Tokyo; and subsequently gave recitals in Mexico and Prague. He performed at the official September 11th commemoration ceremony at the World Trade Center site in 2003 and in 2005 he performed at the peace memorial concerts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 2006, he gave his first and sold-out tour in the 12 cities in Japan ... read full bio

Born in New York in 1988, Ryu Goto began playing the violin at the age of three. His teachers include Yoko Gilbert, Victor Danchenko and Cho-Liang Lin. In the fall of 2006 Ryu entered Harvard University.

Ryu made his concert debut at the age of seven playing all three movements of Paganini Violin Concerto No.1 at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. Since then, he has appeared as a soloist with a number of international orchestras, including Dallas and Washington National symphonies in the United States, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Toscanini Symphonica (Italy), Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, New Symphony Orchestra (Bulgaria), the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO) in Europe, Vancouver Symphony in Canada, and KZN Philharmonic Orchestra of South Africa. In Japan his engagements have included Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Japan Virtuoso Orchestra, Kyoto Symphony, among others. Ryu has collaborated with renowned conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Lorin Maazel, Myung-Whun Chung, Yutaka Sado, Jonathan Nott, and Mikko Franck. He has also appeared as a guest artist at the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, the Lanaudiere Festival in Canada and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in Germany.

In September 2007, he performed as a soloist with the Toscanini Symphonica under the baton of Lorin Maazel at the memorial concert of the 35th Anniversary of Normalization of Diplomatic Relations between Japan and China.

At the age of 13, Ryu appeared an unprecedented series of ten sold-out recitals at the Casals Hall in Tokyo; and subsequently gave recitals in Mexico and Prague. He performed at the official September 11th commemoration ceremony at the World Trade Center site in 2003 and 2005 he performed at the peace memorial concerts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 2006 he gave his first and sold-out tour of 12 cities in Japan.

As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with instrumentalists including Mischa Maisky, the Chung Trio, Jörg Widmann, and Nobuko Imai. His piano trio "Ryu and his Friends" has performed in recitals in New York, Houston and Japan.

Ryu's debut CD "Ryu Goto," released in 2005 by Deutsche Grammophon in collaboration with Universal Classics Japan, quickly became the best selling classical album in Japan for that year. In 2006, Deutsche Grammophon released Brahms Violin Concerto by him as a soloist with the European Union Youth Orchestra under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy, which was then released as a DVD. In 2007, Ryu's second CD and DVD "Ryu Goto Violin Recital 2006" Live from Suntory Hall were released to high acclaim.

Every year since 1996, Fuji TV had broadcasted a documentary entitled "Ryu Goto's Odyssey" every summer. He has also been on the TV commercials of the East Japan Railway Company.

Ryu plays a 1715 Stradivari violin known both as the 'Ex-Pierre Rode' and the 'Duke of Cambridge', on loan from the NPO "Yellow Angel."

Along with his concert engagements, Ryu enjoys playing the guitar and has a black belt in karate.