Vanessa-Mae
Vanessa-Mae
was born in Singapore on 27th October, Paganini's
birthday and moved to London at the age
of four, when she started her early music
education on the piano and violin. After
training as the youngest student with Professor
Lin Yao Ji of the Central Conservatoire
of China in Beijing and with Professor Felix
Andrievsky of the Royal College of Music
in London, Vanessa-Mae made her concerto
debut in London with orchestra at the age
of 10.
By
the time she was 12, she had toured internationally
as concerto soloist and recitalist, released
two classical recordings and embarked on
her third, which was to set a world record
establishing her as the youngest ever to
record the Tchaikovsky and Beethoven Violin
Concertos.
Critical
acclaim for her work in a wide classical
repertoire range from 'supernatural' to
comparisons with Mozart and Mendelssohn
for being a 'true child prodigy'. Gramophone
magazine pronounced her 'phenomenally talented'
and BBC1 called her 'the most exciting young
violinist in the world'.
At
14, Vanessa-Mae joined EMI and in an unprecedented
deal contracted to record both 'pop' and
'classical' in a unique arrangement for
a unique artiste. In February 1995, Vanessa-Mae
made her debut as a 'pop' artiste, releasing
'The Violin Player', her first album of
techno-acoustic violin music, 'The Violin
Player' is a world-wide success and by 1996
this multi-million-selling album had gone
gold and multi-platinum in over 20 countries
as diverse as the UK, Gernany, Australia,
Poland, Singapore, Brazil and Malaysia.
As
a 'live' concert artiste, Vanessa-Mae also
stands unique, straddling both classical
and 'rock & pop' arenas with equal authority.
She is in command of a formidable classical
technique, musicianship and repertoire for
her classical concerts, as well as a dazzling
vertuosity and power of projection which
she employs to full effect in performing
her own music. Last year, she became the
only artiste ever to headline a classical
concert at the Royal Festival Hall performing
a violin concerto with a symphony orchestra
in the same week as selling out her own
'Red Hot' techno-acoustic fusion concert
at the Royal Albert Hall. Both performences
were filmed for television, the latter now
released as a commercial video fot retail.
In
a grueling schedule over the past year,
Vanessa-Mae visited 33 countries, many of
them several times in reponse to demand,
performing on TV and in 'live' concerts
at rock festivals (such as San Remo in Italy,
Midtfyns in Denmark and Out in the Green
in Switzerland), and to packed prestigious
concert halls, such as the Berlin philharmonie,
the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Vienna Konzerthaus,
the Salzburg Festival Hall, the Royal Albert
Hall etc, earning standing ovations everywhere.
At
Zurich's 'Out of the Green', performing
between sets by Status Quo and Rod Stewart,
she excited the 50,000 strong audience into
a 20-minute ovation. There was uproar when
she left and it took a compere 10 minutes
to calm the crowd before Rod Stewart could
start his show.
Vanessa-Mae
futher reinforced her reputation as an explosive
'live' artiste at the long-running Sopot
Festival, sharing the bill with Annie Lennox
in a 'live' broadcast concert. Due to crownd
demand, Vanessa-Mae's performance was extended
by several encores, causing transmission
of the national TV prime-time news to be
delayed in difference to this overwhelming
response. The public sent the album rocketing
to multiple platinum status, an historic
achievement in Poland for a foreigh recotding
artiste.
In
her own world-wide series of 'pop' concerts,
Vanessa-Mae has made a point of introducing
to her new audiences the many cultural influences
and artistic interests in her life, often
including both local ethnic music from the
country she is visiting, and traditional
classical violin music, which she calls
her 'heritage'.
Following
a hugely successful 34-date UK Summer '95
Tour, Vanessa-Mae is currently taking her
Red Hot Tour around the world. In the first
few months of this year, she has already
toured Singapore, Malaysia, Poland, the
Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, Taiwan,
Hong Kong, Belgium, Luxembourg, The Natherlands,
France, Australia and New Zealand. The excitement
generated by her concerts is illustrated
by the filling in of all available gaps
in her original touring schedule in the
UK as well as in Europe. Due to unprecedented
demand, she was asked to add two extra dates
at the Vienna Konzerthaus, following a brilliant
Viennese debut, and even had to put in an
extra matinee at the Munich Philharmonie.
Vanessa-Mae
and her music have crossed all cultural,
geographical and generational barriers and
in response to world-wide demand, she will
tour the rest of the world and return to
many of the territories for a second tour
in the same year.
Vanessa-Mae's
status as an internationally acclaimed artiste
is also evident in the range of honours
bestowed on her. She was awarded the 1998
BAMBI International Classical Artiste of
the Year Award in Germany and in January
of this year was nominateed for Best Female
Solo Pop Artiste in the BRIT Awards. More
recently, she became the youngest and the
only artiste ever to win two ECHO awards
for Best-seller of the year, and for Classical
Without Frontiers.
In
1995, she also had the unusual honour of
being invited to address the 172-year-old
Oxford Union in the famous Debating Chamber,
making history at 16 as the youngest ever
to do so. The event made further history
when the members gave her a standing ovation.
Vanessa-Mae
continues to receive nominations and awards
from all over the world, not only for the
musical breeding and technical accomplishment
which are mandatory accompaniments for a
virtuoso violin career of this class, but
also for the inventiveness and creativity
which makes Vanessa-Mae and the violin capable
of association with new pop culture and
comtemporary musical influence.
On
a lighter note, Vanessa-Mae became the first
foreign artiste to be invited to perform
the National Anthem at World Series Play-offs
at Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park in the
USA, where she also enjoyed the honour of
appearing as Jay Leno's guest on the high-rating
Tonight Show's most important show of the
year, the Thanksgiving Day Special. Earlier
this summer, she performed a most successful
televised concert at the G7 Summit in France,
where she performed to a wildly enthusiastic
audience of over 150,000.
With
this album, Vanessa-Mae returns to her classical
heritage by launching a new series of classical
recordings. The first album features music
by four German composers. Vanessa-Mae explained
her choice of repertoure for this first
album in the series, in her speech on tour*
(adapted and translated from the original
text of her various speeches on concert
tour in German and Austria © Summer
1996) which will be available with the enhanced
version of this CD in a limited edition
to be released in 1997.
*In
Germany and in Austria, (as in over 20 other
countries), her 'techno-acoustic fusion'
version of Bach's 'Toccata and Fugue (the
first single from the 'pop' album), and
the album itself stormed the charts, both
with the pop public as well as the classical
audiences who give her standing ovations
at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Cologne
Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus (where
demand created repeat concerts), the Salzburg
Festival Hall and other prestigious venues.
Vanessa-Mae has often remarked on the open-mindedness
of music lovers from the country which produced
'Bach and his original Toccata and Fugue
for keyboard'. Following a brilliant debut
tour with the 'Red Hot' concert, Vanessa-Mae
has just returned for an equally successful
second tour this year of Austria and Germany,
this perfoeming only classical repertoire
with symphony orchestra.
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September 1996 > |
