Before she even turned 18, Nicola Benedetti had already achieved career milestones that elude many classical musicians their entire lifetimes.
In the span of just one year in 2004-05, the supremely talented violinist was signed by IMG Artists, one of the largest and most prestigious talent agencies in the world; was named the BBC’s 2004 Young Musician of the Year and was extended a six-album deal by Universal/Deutsche Grammophon.
Denver audiences will get their first chance to hear this hot young talent — now 20 — this weekend when she makes her Colorado debut, joining guest conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto and the Colorado Symphony for three concerts.
As her soft brogue makes evident, Benedetti was born in Scotland, in the west coast county of Ayrshire. Her Italian-born father immigrated to Scotland when he was 10, and her mother, the daughter of an Italian mother and Scottish father, moved there at age 3.
Benedetti started playing the violin when she was 4. In 1997, she left home for studies at England’s Yehudi Menuhin School, founded by the renowned violinist in 1963. A year later, she was already making appearances in Paris and London, and in 2000 she performed with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
To win the the 2004 competition for the BBC award, she played Karol Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1, the kind of bold, unorthodox choice that has continued to mark her musicmaking.
“Her rich, expressive tone, her assured and controlled technique and her intuitive grasp of this complex concerto and its subtle colors marked her as a musician far ahead of her years: a fully fledged artist, ready to begin her career there and then,” wrote Jessica Duchen in The Independent, a London newspaper.
Besides Benedetti’s obvious talent and a little good luck along the way, it hasn’t hurt that the violinist is uncommonly attractive — a trait that her record label has eagerly exploited (tastefully, it must be said) — in the cover photography for her three releases.
She acknowledges that she is “not unaware of” the role her pulchritude has probably played in advancing her career, but she does not devote any thought to it.
“The only time it’s ever anything I think of is really when I’m being asked, like in interviews — it’s the only time it ever becomes any sort of issue. And, occasionally, meeting a conductor or an orchestra manager or people in the industry, even orchestra musicians as well, for the first time, I can be sensitive to some sort of preconceived idea of why I am doing what I’m doing.
“But if you focus on playing well, and the minute you do, people forget these things, and that’s what is important.”
Benedetti’s chief goal is performing with and learning from the best musicians in the world, and she said her appearance is never going to help with that.
“In terms of what I’m working towards, what makes me happy, I can’t possibly achieve (that) through anything to do with how I look,” she said.
Since 2004, her career has exploded, with as many as 100 concerts a year on her schedule. This season alone, she is making debuts with orchestras in London, Zurich and Vienna and, in May, she will tour Spain with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
“I’ve been brought up to believe that you’re not always lucky enough at every point in your life to be offered the same opportunities,” she said. “Take what you can and make the best of it.”
That said, she is planning in the next few years to perform less and devote more time to studying and improving her playing, what she described as a slow, long-term process.
“I think performing for audiences is a huge part of that education,” she said, “but I’m at the stage now where I’ve done a huge amount of that for the last three years, and I can actually relax a bit more and take more time to study and kind of rebalance the days and the year in a different way.”
Other than Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, Benedetti has largely steered clear of the familiar chestnuts for her first three albums. Instead, she chose primarily compositions by English and Scottish composers, including works written for her by James MacMillan and John Tavener, with whom she worked closely.
But in Denver, she will stick to more traditional repertoire, performing Max Bruch’s well-known Violin Concerto No. 1.
Benedetti was forced to cancel two concerts in England with the Philharmonia Orchestra two weeks ago, because of still not fully diagnosed lower back pain, which first appeared at the beginning of the year.
“Anybody that I have seen hasn’t been able to say exactly what it’s been caused by, but I’m sure doing the amount of traveling that I’m doing and playing all the time was something to with it,” she said.
Though not fully healed, she is feeling enough better to undertake this American tour.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
Nicola Benedetti, violin
Classical music. Boettcher Concert Hall, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets. This 20-year-old rising star joins guest conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto and the Colorado Symphony for Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. $15-$69.50. 303-623-7876 or .
