Nicola Benedetti Wins BBC Music Magazine’s Personality Of The Year

Violinist Nicola Benedetti has won this year’s BBC Music Magazine’s Personality of the Year Award. Nicola Benedetti is one of the most sought-after violinists of her generation and one of the most influential classical artists of today. Since establishing The Benedetti Foundation in 2020 she has helped to keep the inspirations of musicians of all ages and stages alive during the pandemic with an array of online courses and videos.

The Benedetti Foundation’s Virtual Sessions in May 2020 delivered three weeks of online tutorials for over 7,000 musicians, ages 2 – 92, of all standards from 66 countries, published over 300 videos, delivered 64 live Zoom sectionals to around 1,900 string players per week and gave 30 live sessions on Facebook and YouTube. Since January 2020 the Foundation has met with over 23,000 participants from 84 countries.

Nicola Benedetti

Nicola Benedetti was born in Scotland in 1987 and began playing the violin at the age of four. As a child she studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School before going on to win the BBC Young Musician competition in 2004 at the age of 16. In 2020 Nicola Benedetti won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for her recording of Wynton Marsalis’ Violin Concerto and Fiddle Dance Suite. The album features premiere recordings of two works written especially for her by composer and jazz legend Wynton Marsalis. Nicola Benedetti’s latest album Elgar features music by Britain’s best loved composer including his vast Violin Concerto. Aside from extensive touring with the world’s most exceptional orchestras and ensembles Nicola Benedetti is one of the world’s leading advocates for quality music education, and she formalised her vision and by establishing The Benedetti Foundation.

BBC Music Magazine Awards

The winners of the 2021 BBC Music Magazine Awards were announced today, 14 April 2021. The BBC Music Magazine Awards celebrate the very best of the classical recording world and are the only classical music recording awards in which the main categories are voted for by the public.

The Tallis Scholars won both Recording of the Year and the Choral Award for their recording of Josquin masses. Egyptian soprano Fatma Said won the Newcomer Award and the Vocal Award for her debut album El Nour. This year’s Orchestral Award went to the Sinfonia of London and its conductor John Wilson for their recording of Respighi’s Roman Trilogy: the Pines, Fountains and Festivals of Rome. The Instrumental Award was awarded to pianist Steven Osborne for his performances of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas Nos 6, 7 and 8, and the Concerto Award went to Antje Weithaas and cellist Maximilian Hornung for their performances of Schumann’s Violin Concerto and Brahms’s Double Concerto. Violinist Tasmin Little won this year’s Chamber Award with pianist Piers Lane for their album British Violin Sonatas Vol. 3. The Opera Award went to a performance of Malcolm Arnold’s The Dancing Master, featuring a stellar cast of singers and the BBC Concert Orchestra, under the baton of John Andrews.

Alongside the publicly voted categories the BBC Music Magazine jury awarded two further Jury Awards. The Premiere Award went to No Longer Mourn For Me, an album of Tavener works by cellist Steven Isserlis, and the DVD Award was awarded to Keith Warner’s staging of Wagner’s Die Walküre from the Royal Opera House.

“This past year has been impossibly hard for everyone,” noted BBC Music Magazine Editor Oliver Condy. “It’s wonderful to see the standard of recordings remain impressively high across the board.”

For further details of the winners of the 2021 BBC Music Magazine Awards click here.

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