NICOLA BENEDETTI

Friday 15 February 2008, 7.30PM

Symphony Hall, BIRMINGHAM

She first appeared at Symphony Hall as an 11-year-old rising star, now Nicola Benedetti is internationally famous and regularly graces the covers of the world’s leading music magazines. The 20-year-old violinist, returns to Symphony Hall to give her first UK performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto, with the Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra conducted by Kristjan Järvi, on Friday 15 February.

As an 11-year-old student at the Yehudi Menuhin School, Nicola Benedetti was invited by Lord Menuhin to take part in one of three special concerts he planned to conduct at Symphony Hall in April 1999. But, just a month before they were due to take place, Menuhin died. In their place a tribute concert was arranged (on 29 April 1999) to celebrate his musical life with Nicola playing the Bach A minor Violin Concerto in one of her very first professional engagements. It was five years later that she won the BBC Young Musician competition and secured her future as a dynamic and unique artist of international acclaim.

The Symphony Hall date (Friday 15 February) is the first concert of a major UK tour for the 100-year-old Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra with Chief Conductor and Music Director Kristjan Järvi, and sees Nicola Benedetti performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto for the first time in the UK in her professional career. The UK tour follows a European tour on which she plays the Concerto for the first time.

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NICOLA BENEDETTI