LEADING violinist Nicola Benedetti has revealed she had to take out a restraining order on an obsessive fan with a number of stalking experiences plaguing her classical career.
The 30-year-old Scot said that one fan threatened suicide, in writing, when he found out that she had a boyfriend.
Speaking in an interview with the Mail on Sunday, the musician disclosed that she has had to get the police involved in the past to deal with the unwanted attention.
She said: "I’ve had three or four more serious cases, one really bad. I had to get a restraining order because it was a source of such stress.
"My worst experience was a guy in Japan who found every hotel I was staying in – he would appear from behind a pillar when I walked through the lobby.
"There is also someone with a severe mental instability who does scare me.
"We try to be careful, to be aware of where he is. But I am not overly worried. He has been in the same vicinity as me many times and has never tried to attack me."
Benedetti, originally from North Ayrshire, first found fame at the age of 16 when she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2004.
She has since become one of the most sought-after soloists of her generation, producing eight albums and becoming the youngest person ever to be awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music in 2016.
This year she is set to perform at the BBC Proms and will top the bill at the Edinburgh International Festival.
The star also said in the interview that she no longer has any feeling on the scars on her neck where she plays her £10 million, 301-year-old Stradivarius.
She said: "They don’t hurt, they’re just numb."
"I’ve never known how I look without them as they developed at such a young age.
"But I always request for them not to be covered by make-up.
"Photographers frequently want me to do that, and I ask for them to be left alone. I guess that says I’m proud and comfortable with them."
She also commented on her own experiences in the classical music industry amid the recent #MeToo moment spotlight on unwanted sexual attention and abuse.
In one of the most recent blights in the industry, Charles Dutoit, the principal conductor and artistic director of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was relieved of his duties last year amid allegations of sexual assault, which he denies.
Benedetti, who refused to comment on individual cases, said that "overwhelmingly my experience has been cordial and fair".
"However, when I was a lot younger there was some improper behaviour, although never anything I couldn’t handle, even when I was 17 or 18," she said.
"I won’t give a specific example because I don’t want to join the crowd.
"Honestly, if I felt I had been damaged by those moments I would consider saying something because I would carry resentment and anger, but I don’t."
"I think there is still a lot of integrity in the world of classical performance.
"If you are as serious as you can be about how you play your instrument, about your music, and you show everybody that is 100 per cent where your focus is, it is incredible what you can defuse and dissipate."
However she also clarified that this was not saying that women can avoid unwanted sexual attention or that it shouldn’t be called out and punished.
"No, not at all. Some people are pigs and I want to believe in a legal system that functions and is called into place when someone is accused of something," she added.
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