Polish-born violinist and conductor Szymon Goldberg fled Germany in 1934. He became a U.S. citizen in 1953 and two years later he founded the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. He enjoyed close to five decades of a successful career as soloist, chamber musician, and conductor. His teaching career comprised faculty positions at Yale, Juilliard, Curtis Institute, and the Manhattan School of Music. In 1987 he was invited to conduct the Toho Gakuen orchestra in Tokyo, accompanied by a translator, pianist Miyoko Yamane.
Born in Tokyo, Miyoko Yamane Goldberg began playing the piano as a very young child. At age fourteen, upon the advice of her teacher Kazuko Yasukawa, she went to France and became the youngest student at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris at the time. Her subsequent teachers have included Rudolf Serkin, Rudolf FirkuŠný, and Rudolf Kolisch. After her 1969 debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, she settled in New York, playing with various orchestras and chamber music ensembles. She married Szymon Goldberg in 1988 and they lived in Philadelphia, spending summer and Christmas vacations in Japan.
In 1990 Szymon Goldberg became the conductor of the Tokyo-based New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and a visiting professor at the Toho Gakuen School of Music. In 1992 the Goldbergs moved to Japan, taking up residence in the foothills of Tateyama Mountains in Toyama. After her husband's death on July 19, 1993, Mrs. Goldberg remained in Japan performing and mentoring young artists. She died unexpectedly of a long time illness on October 20, 2006, during the Szymon Goldberg Memorial Chamber Music Festival in Toyoma.