Nicola Benedetti

Nicola Benedetti was born in West Kilbride, Scotland, to an Italian father and an Italian-Scottish mother. She started learning to play the violin at the age of four. At age eight, she became the leader of the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain. By the age of nine, she had already passed the eight grades of musical examinations and, in September 1997, began to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School for young musicians in rural Surrey.

At the end of her first year (1998), she played solo in the school’s annual concert at Wigmore Hall, and performed in London and Paris as a soloist in Bach’s Double Violin Concerto with Alina Ibragimova. She played in a memorial concert at Westminster Abbey celebrating the life and work of Yehudi Menuhin. Nicola has an older sister, Stephanie, who as previous noted on this blog is also a violinist and a member of the pop group Clean Bandit.

In 1999, Benedetti performed for the anniversary celebrations at Holyrood Palace with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland. In August 2002, she won the UK’s Brilliant Prodigy Competition, broadcast by Carlton Television. She left the Menuhin School shortly after and, at the age of 15, began studying privately with Maciej Rakowski, the former leader of the English Chamber Orchestra. In spring 2003, Benedetti, invited as a soloist by the London Symphony Orchestra, participated in the recording of the DVD titled Barbie of Swan Lake at Abbey Road. In October 2003, as the extra feature on this DVD, “Playing With Passion” was filmed and released by Mattel. Using this DVD BBC Scotland, created a documentary on Benedetti, which was broadcast on television in the UK in March 2004.

In May 2004, at the age of 16, Benedetti won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, performing Karol Szymanowski’s First Violin Concerto in the final at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, with the BBC Scottish Symphony. As a result of gaining the award, she came first in the music section of the Top Scot award in December 2005. Despite winning the competition, The Times reported that Benedetti was snubbed by Jack McConnell, the then First Minister of Scotland, who thought that there was insufficient public interest to merit a personal message of congratulations. Following a public and political outcry, McConnell telephoned Benedetti to acknowledge her success.

In September 2012, she performed at the Last Night of the Proms, playing Violin Concerto No.1 by Max Bruch. That same year, Benedetti was loaned the 1717 “Gariel” Stradivarius by London banker and London Symphony Orchestra Board member Jonathan Moulds. Apart from solo performances, Benedetti performs in a trio with the German cellist Leonard Elschenbroich and the Russian pianist Alexei Grynyuk. She was made a CBE in the 2019 New Year Honours List, “For services to Music”.

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