How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Ask Ryu Goto...

For Jascha Heifetz, it was October 27, 1917. Itzhak Perlman had his turn on March 5, 1963. Now comes May 4, 2010—the day of violinist Ryu Goto’s Carnegie Hall debut.

American audiences may not know this 21-year-old virtuoso yet, but he is already a star in Japan. He began thrilling audiences there at age seven, following the precocious trend established by his half-sister Midori. In 2008, he toured Japan with Orpheus, performing Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons for sellout crowds. Ryu has an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon, and he has been the subject of a documentary series. Balancing his international music career with life as a Physics major at Harvard University, he will spend the week before final exams rehearsing and performing Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with Orpheus.

Bruch’s immortal concerto demands fearless bravura and luscious tone from its soloist. Ryu delivers both, as more than 104,000 people have witnessed in his performance of Ravel’s Tzigane on YouTube. But even in this digital era, the Internet is not where a prodigy comes of age; there is still no rite of passage like a soloist’s first step onto the stage of Carnegie Hall.