There have been a couple of articles on this site recently mentioning world famous musicians who have a Barga background – Paolo Nutini, Rachel Sermanni and Nicola Benedetti.
It would seem that there are still some people here in the city not actually aware of just who is the last name on that list – the violinist, Nicola Benedetti.
She was here in Barga during the summer and will probably be back once the warmer weather is with us again – at which point we will see about an interview with her to find out some more details concerning her Barga background but in the meantime here is an interview with her from another publication:
The cover of her new album shows Nicola Benedetti in faded sepia, clutching a scuffed leather violin case and sauntering towards a rather nice green-and-white 1960s Vespa.
The album’s name, Italia, is scrawled in breezy cursive above what looks like the entrance to a rustic Tuscan villa. “Actually, we were in England and it was freezing,” says Benedetti. “And no, I did not ride the Vespa. That would have been a very bad idea.”
For all the retro-chic props, Benedetti’s trademark image is still centre stage. Masses of long dark hair, eyes made up à la Sophia Loren, shapely legs bare up to somewhere behind the fiddle case… Fans of the violinist’s glamorous side will not be disappointed. But the album also marks something of a departure for 24-year-old Benedetti: a first-time venture into repertoire that is both deeply personal and demands a new way of playing.
The personal connection is fairly self-evident. Benedetti’s parents were both born in Italy and came to Scotland as children. Despite a hearty Ayrshire accent, she herself has spent a significant chunk of her life in Italy, and still spends her holidays there. “This summer we were in Barga, where my father is from,” she says. “It’s where a lot of Scots-Italians are from, and everyone seems to go back at the same time each summer. I was constantly getting tapped on the shoulder to have my photo taken with someone from Kilmarnock or Prestwick. It was a bit much — I mean, I was wearing wee shorts and a vest top, not exactly concert gear, but of course, it’s always great to hear a Scots accent.”
Benedetti was born in West Kilbride, North Ayrshire to an Italian father and a Scottish mother. She started learning to play the violin at the age of four. At age eight, she became the leader of the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain. By the age of nine, she had already passed the eight grades of musical examinations while attending the independent Wellington School, Ayr, Scotland and in September 1997 began to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School for young musicians under Lord Menuhin and Natasha Boyarskaya in rural Surrey, England.
At the end of her first year (1998), she played solo in the school’s annual concert at Wigmore Hall, and performed in London and Paris as a soloist in Bach’s Double Violin Concerto (together with Alina Ibragimova). She played in a memorial concert at Westminster Abbey celebrating the life and work of Yehudi Menuhin. – wikipedia
Since winning BBC’s Young Musician of the Year competition in 2004, Benedetti has been well trained in the art of the media interview. Over the phone from New York (she’s been performing on a grandstand in Central Park with Andrea Bocelli) she is cheerful but business-like: positive and polite, but also guarded, often alluding to opinions without spelling them out. Unwanted attention from fans on holiday is one such example.
When she discusses her Italian background, though, she is freer with her words. She talks fondly about Italy’s countryside, Italian personality traits (“stubborn!”), and how she recently restarted Italian lessons.
“The parts of the family that moved to Scotland discouraged my parents from speaking Italian to us when we were kids. It was that generation’s attitude to immigration, I think, and when I visited Barga it made more sense. My father is typical of people who have worked hard to leave some-where so aren’t inclined to celebrate where they have left. They celebrate where they’ve arrived. Though, of course, my parents couldn’t entirely abandon their cultural habits, no matter how hard they tried.”
For one thing, I suggest, they were probably better cooks than rest of us. “You say that like it’s not serious,” she replies, “but it is very serious. For Italians, food — eating meals together — is the epicentre of the family. When we’re on holiday together, the only thing my family thinks about is what’s for lunch and dinner, and how and when and where we will we prepare it. My idea of a proper meal involves shopping all morning, cooking all afternoon and eating and talking all night.”
Sounds dreamy, if a little awkward to fit with life as a globe-trotting soloist. “Yeah, but anything’s possible if you make it a priority,” she says. “Even if I’ve got a million things to practise, I’ll make the effort to eat properly with friends or family. That’s part of my heritage I will hold on to.”
Turning her professional focus to that heritage is a journey Benedetti has wanted to make for years. As a violinist, she says Italian music is almost exclusively synonymous with Baroque music — Italian solo repertoire for the instrument came in droves during the 18th century, but more or less dried up after that — which is where her musical departure comes in. Until now, Benedetti’s core repertoire has been predominantly Romantic and post-Romantic: she won Young Musician with Szymanowski’s first concerto, then went on to release five albums featuring Tchaikovsky and Bruch, John Tavener and James MacMillan. Her Stradivarius dates from 1714, but her playing style has been of a later age, a broad sound full of sumptuous vibrato. – source
Her site can be seen here