The beautiful young violinist Vanessa-Mae was just in her mid-teens when she shattered the mold of the classical virtuoso with the release of her first fusion album The Violin Player, forging a new style that has made her a multi-million-selling worldwide phenomenon and the breakthrough artist who virtually defined the fusion of classical and pop that became known as crossover. At the age of 25, she has been a superstar for a decade. Now she makes her Sony Classical debut and marks a new musical direction with the release of Choreography, a highly original album that celebrates dance rhythms from around the world. Original pieces and fresh arrangements have been created for the album by the Oscar-winning Vangelis, Bill Whelan of Riverdance, Indian film composer A.R. Rahman (the musical Bombay Dreams) and Tolga Kashif (The Queen Symphony), amongst others. Choreography will be released internationally in September 2004 and in the U.S. in early 2005.
Born in Singapore on October 27, 1978 - she shares a birthday with the first international violin superstar, Niccolò Paganini - Vanessa-Mae moved to London with her family when she was four, began classical violin studies the following year and made her professional debut on the international stage at the 1988 Schleswig-Holstein Festival in 1988, the same year she made her concerto debut in the U.K. with London's Philharmonia Orchestra. Her classical career was a prodigy's dream - the youngest violinist ever to record the Tchaikovsky and Beethoven violin concertos, a world tour with the London Mozart Players during the Mozart bicentennial year, great reviews from international critics - and she had three classical albums to her credit when she was only 13 years old. It was her interest in new arrangements for violin of her favorite classical melodies that led Vanessa-Mae to seek more than the traditional repertoire could offer. The result of that quest was The Violin Player and the string of successful crossover discs that followed.
The worldwide embrace of Vanessa-Mae is a compliment returned in her new Sony Classical album Choreography. The music draws its inspiration from the rhythms and pulses of dance cultures from around the world - the Argentinean tango, the Spanish bolero, the tribal dances of Africa, the complex allure of Indian music - and creates a new challenge for the remarkable young beauty who changed forever the way audiences hear the violin.
For more information and a full biography and discography on Vanessa Mae please visit her official website at www.vanessa-mae.com
I just listened to a recording of Vannesa Mae playing
Paganini's 1st concerto in D Major. It was the best recording of that song that I have ever heard.
