No wonder the whole Scottish nation loves Nicola (no, not that one)

(Actually, it’s the Fringe I deplore most. Maybe it’s just me. I don’t even like the word “festival”, which suggests people enjoying themselves: deplorable behaviour at a time of global warming.)

Still, Nicola’s exemplary violin performances have brought pleasure to millions and, beyond playing, she’s also passionate about music education. Her charitable Benedetti Foundation, dedicated to encouraging young musicians, launched a project just this month to educate 15-18 year-olds about the possibilities of a musical career, warning them that the alternatives might include journalism.

Edinburgh International Festival director Nicola Benedetti at the National Museum of Scotland to launch the 2024. Picture: Gordon Terris (Image: Gordon Terris)

She herself has come a long way in a short time, considering that when she was born on July 20 1987 she couldn’t play a note. Nicola Joy Nadia Benedetti’s place of birth was West Kilbride, a North Ayrshire village and parish less well known than East Kilbride, despite the discovery of a neolithic cup there.

Her parents were Italian and Scottish, which is a pretty good combination, and they were clearly a culturally inspiring pair. Nicola has an older sister, Stephanie, who is also a violinist and a member of Clean Bandit, which is, it says here, an electro-classical crossover. I see.

During school holidays, Nicola and Stephanie had to work for three hours every morning before they could go out to play. “Think how much more fun that made the afternoons,” she said.

At the grand old age of eight, she was burdened with the responsibility of being leader of the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain. By the age of nine, while attending Ayrshire’s only “independent” school, Wellington, she had passed the eight grades of musical examinations and, in 1997, started further studies at the Yehudi Menuhin School for young musicians in yonder Surrey. Disgracefully, by this time, she still had not made a Moon landing.

After only a year at yon Yehudi’s gaff, she was playing solo in the school’s annual concert at Wigmore Hall, not to mention performing in London and Paris as a soloist in Bach’s Double Violin Concerto.

In 1999, in the presence of HRH Prince Ted, as he’s rarely known, Nicola performed for the anniversary celebrations at Holyrood Palace with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.

Subsequent performances followed with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Opera, City of London Sinfonia, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Scottish Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Scottish Whatnot, and so on.

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In 2002, she won the Brilliant Prodigy Competition and, in 2004, aged 16, was named BBC Young Musician of the Year after a performance at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall. A hoo-ha ensued when then-First Minister Jack McConnell was accused of snubbing our Nicola, claiming he hadn’t sent a personal message of congratulations because he thought such a prize of little interest to the proletariat.

Eventually, Jack – now Lord McConnell of Socialism – bowed to the People’s Pressure and phoned Nicola: “Hi, Miss Bennadinkie. Jack here. Just phoning because folk have been nipping ma heid aboot your award. Turns out classical music is quite popular. Who’d a thunk it? More a Motorhead man maself. Do you know the Ace of Spades? That’s right virtuosical stuff. Anyway, well done, sweetheart. Stick in at the ukelele. Must dash. Country to run, ken?”

At 17, Benedetti signed a £1 million, six-album recording contract. Her debut album, featuring the Szymanowski violin concerto she’d played to win Young Musician, shot straight in at No 2 in the classical charts.

Her second album, called Mendelssohn, MacMillan, Mozart, was praised by Classic FM magazine for its “eloquent, heartfelt simplicity” and “beautifully phrased playing”.

At this time, she was still aiming to practise six hours a day, even if, as she told the Scotsman at the time, her hectic performance schedule only left room for an hour or two of “really focused thinking”.

And she was still learning, taking lessons with Maciej Rakowski, professor at the Royal College of Music, who lived in Twickenham, a 15-minute drive from Benedetti’s home. Today, she lives in Surrey.

In 2009, specialist classical publication the Daily Record reported that her fourth album, Fantasie, had “stormed to the top of the [classical] charts”, beating even Nigel Kennedy’s re-release of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Her 2012 album, The Silver Violin, was the first solo instrumental album in decades to enter the top 30 pop chart as well as the classical charts.

To date, she has released 13 albums, including this year’s Beethoven: Triple Concerto, Op. 56, with Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Benjamin Grosvenor, both similarly alumni of the BBC Young Musician competition. As well as daein’ Beethoven, the trio conclude with a performance of Danny Boy, a song famously popular with drunks.

Edinburgh International Festival director Nicola Benedetti (Image: PA)

In 2023, Benedetti was appointed Member of the Order of the Defunct British Empire (MBDE) and, in 2019, was promoted to Commander of the Order of the Deceased British Empire (CBDE).

Earlier this month, The Herald reported her warning of a crisis in the arts if the Scottish Government failed to stump up £100 million in funding. If society ceased to see the arts as a “civic pillar”, she said, then “we are essentially changing our goalposts and our identity. We’re shifting what, post-second World War, we believed was a society that was increasing in equality and elevating civilisation.” Or: up the arts!

Meanwhile, back down on the musical front, she plays a Stradivarius called the Gariel, made in 1717 and worth an estimated £2 million. It once belonged to an ancestor of that Princess Diana.

She still practises between three and seven and a half hours a day, and once proffered this advice: “Enhance your own ability, be the best you can be – but don’t keep that for yourself. Share it, expose it, give it and try to enrich other people with what you have managed to achieve.”

So, there you are. Well, get on with it.