Vanessa Mae

Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson was born in Singapore on October 27th, 1978 - exactly 196 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.



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.