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.
Vanessa-Mae started her concert appearances at the age of 10. She played with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, being the youngest solist in history to play Bach's, Mozart's and Kabalevsky's concertos with the orchestra.
In 1991 the whole world celebrated 200th anniversary of Mozart's death; right then 12 years old Vanessa performed, along with London Mozart Players, her first internaitonal tournee with concerts on Far-East. She played with the best orchestras, including performances in London with London Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, or (as was already mentioned) London Mozart Players.
Vanessa-Mae also releases some records. At the age of 9 she started writing her own cadenzas to Mozart's concertos, at 12 she had 3 albums in her discography: two of them containing classical repertoire, the third ranging between Bach, Tchaykovsky, Gershwin, The Beatles, or the theme from 'The red panther'. She is also the youngest violin player ever to record Beethoven's and Tchaykovsky's violin concertos at once. She often declares that she's going to play whatever she likes, no matter if this would be Beethoven, The Beatles, Mozart, Michael Jackson, Prince, Paganini or Elvis Presley - she likes them all.
Vanessa quickly became an extremely popular and well-known person. She is often invited to take part in TV and radio programs, where she played along with stars like Jose Carreras or Soul II Soul. She receives extremely positive reviews... "phenomenon of the '90s"... "plays as if she was born with the violin"... "wunderkind"... She is compared with such musicians as Yehudi Menuhin, Heifetz or Kreisler.
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.
All important magazines write about Vanessa-Mae. Both those dedicated to classical music (like "Gramophone") and those writing about all the other genres (like "Billboard"). Her career is spotted by "The Times", "The Guardian", and most other newspapers worldwide. In 1997 "Storm" was released and gained quite some applause from both critics and audience. Vanessa's star doesn't fade away - she releases even better and more surpricing albums.
That's what probably will be her newest release "Subject To Change". It's coproducer is legendary Youth, and the tracks were co-composed by both Vanessa and him. Another fresh addition are very modern sounds getting sometimes close to club music. Another ones to work on the record are JS16 and Airscape - well known between dance folks. "Subject To Change" featurea a completely new Vanessa-Mae. More mature, brave and... beautiful as ever...