Vanessa Mae
Simply Beautiful !!!
Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson was born in Singapore on October 27th, 1978 - exactly 196 years after legendary violinist Niccolo Paganini...! Her family moved to London when she was 4. That's where she started to learn playing piano and, year later, violin. At the age of 7 she won a prestigious competition for 'Young British Pianist of the Year' (the only one she took part in). That's when she gave up pianist career and decided to concentrate exclusively on playing violin. After being personally invited by professor Lin-Yao-Ji, Vanessa, 8 years old at the time, travelled to conservatory in Beijing to continue training being taught by the Maestro according to methods developed by russian teachers. The course was originally scheduled for 3 years, Vanessa, however, had finished it in few months time, assimilating all hints and suggestions received from her teachers in such a short period of time. After that she returned to Europe to receive further training. In 1988 she travelled to Schlezwig-Holstein for summer master-courses, where she trained under professor Felix Andreyevsky. When Vanessa was 11, she passed entrance exams for a one-year course at Royal College of Music, where, year later, she became the only child in College's history to gain the 'The Professional Diploma Course' diplomma.
Vanessa-Mae started her concert appearances at the age of 10. She played with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, being the youngest solist in history to play Bach's, Mozart's and Kabalevsky's concertos with the orchestra.
In 1991 the whole world celebrated 200th anniversary of Mozart's death; right then 12 years old Vanessa performed, along with London Mozart Players, her first internaitonal tournee with concerts on Far-East. She played with the best orchestras, including performances in London with London Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, or (as was already mentioned) London Mozart Players.
At the age of 9 she started writing her own cadenzas to Mozart's concertos, at 12 she had 3 albums in her discography: two of them containing classical repertoire, the third ranging between Bach, Tchaykovsky, Gershwin, The Beatles, or the theme from 'The red panther'. She is also the youngest violin player ever to record Beethoven's and Tchaykovsky's violin concertos at once. She often declares that she's going to play whatever she likes, no matter if this would be Beethoven, The Beatles, Mozart, Michael Jackson, Prince, Paganini or Elvis Presley -- she likes them all.
Vanessa quickly became an extremely popular and well-known person. She is often invited to take part in TV and radio programs, where she played along with stars like Jose Carreras or Soul II Soul. She receives extremely positive reviews... "phenomenon of the '90s"... "plays as if she was born with the violin"... "wunderkind"... She is compared with such musicians as Yehudi Menuhin, Heifetz or Kreisler.
1995 was a very important year to Vanessa-Mae. That's when "The Violin Player" was released. The album features a fusion of classics, pop, rock and techno -- as the Artist describes it herself. Featured compositions range from Back to rock. In 1995 Vanessa played on Sopot Festival in Poland. The performance turned out to be a huge success. Vanessa-Mae got a completely new publicity and 'The Violin Player' selled in almost 300,000 copies at that time. Many stated that world turned insane. Vanessa made people interested in violin music and the instrument -- forgotten by many and associated with philharmonies got a new image.
All important magazines write about Vanessa-Mae. Both those dedicated to classical music (like "Gramophone") and those writing about all the other genres (like "Billboard"). Her career is spotted by "The Times", "The Guardian", and most other newspapers worldwide. In 1997 "Storm" was released and gained quite some applause from both critics and audience. Vanessa's star doesn't fade away -- she releases even better and more surpricing albums.
It was on the eve of her 21st birthday that Vanessa-Mae, for 10 years the world's favourite child prodigy of pop-classical music, finally decided it was time to grow up and sack her mother. She did not choose to do so lightly. Pamela Mae Nicholson, 42, had been producer and piano accompanist for her only child since she first stepped onto the stage as a 10-year-old.
"The trouble was that mum and I were very different in what we wanted and how we wanted to achieve it. She just didn't understand or support what I was trying to do. We talked and argued, but there comes a point when you can't force an adult - particularly your own mother - to see things your way. When I realised it wasn't possible to work together on something we'd both be proud of, it seemed better to go solo.
"I'm not someone who makes spur of the moment decisions and it didn't happen quickly. I had thought about it quietly to myself. It had been building for a long time."
"There's been a lot of clearing up to do because it was a working relationship and we had to round things up and finish off," she says. "We are still in contact, but we don't see much of each other because I am off working and she is busy with other projects. She has always been very ambitious and is working harder than ever."
"Working in the studio the atmosphere is so different. It's so happy," she says. "Everyone is excited to be contributing which is a different feeling from before. I always used to be a perfectionist and a bit of a whip-cracker, now I've learnt that you can't work alone. You need to take other people's advice and criticism because they have things to offer you that can be very helpful. That's something my mother couldn't do and I couldn't do for a long time.
"If you gave me a choice of ending up differently to how I am now I would still choose to be here today over every other possible version of me. I believe that life is too short for regrets or for wondering `what if'?"
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