Nicola Benedetti
Nicola Joy Nadia Benedetti CBE (born 20 July 1987) is an Italian-Scottish classical solo violinist and festival director. Her ability was recognised when she was a child, including the award of BBC Young Musician of the Year when she was 16. She works with orchestras in Europe and America as well as with Alexei Grynyuk, her regular pianist. Since 2012, she has played the Gariel Stradivarius violin. In 2019, she founded the music education charity The Benedetti Foundation and became the first woman to lead[1] the Edinburgh International Festival when she was made Festival Director on 1 October 2022.[2]
For the Italian modern pentathlete, see Nicola Benedetti (pentathlete).
Nicola Benedetti
Early life and education[edit]
Benedetti was born in West Kilbride, North Ayrshire, Scotland, to an Italian father and an Italian-Scottish mother.[3] She started to play the violin at the age of four with lessons from Brenda Smith. At eight, she became the leader of the National Children's Orchestra of Great Britain.[4] By the age of nine, she had already passed the eight grades of musical examinations while attending the independent Wellington School, Ayr,[5] and, in September 1997, began to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School for young musicians under Lord Menuhin and Natasha Boyarskaya in rural Surrey, England.
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.
In 2000, she competed in the Menuhin Competition as a junior competitor.
Nicola has an older sister, Stephanie, who is also a violinist and a member of the pop group Clean Bandit.
Since 2012[edit]
In September 2012, she performed at the Last Night of the Proms, playing Violin Concerto No. 1 by Max Bruch.[12] That same year, Benedetti was lent the 1717 "Gariel" Stradivarius by London banker and London Symphony Orchestra Board member Jonathan Moulds.[13]
Apart from solo performances, Benedetti performs in a trio with the German cellist Leonard Elschenbroich and the British-Ukrainian pianist Alexei Grynyuk.[14]
Artistic recognition[edit]
Benedetti was chosen as the subject for the winner of the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2021, Calum Stevenson, and this portrait now hangs in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.[15][16]
Personal life[edit]
Benedetti was in a relationship with German cellist Leonard Elschenbroich, whom she met at the Yehudi Menuhin School of Music. Although that relationship has ended, they continue to perform together and are good friends.[33]
In March of 2024, Benedetti announced that she was pregnant with her first child.[34]