and then my mum would be, like, you ve got to do this in a minute. focus. and then, when i would play, i would be very focused. what did the experience of playing with the orchestra at that age teach you? what did you take away from that, do you think? it s just. . . it s just unreal. there is nothing like the feeling of playing in a full symphony orchestra. and when you have grown to love certain pieces of music and then you literally hear that come to life with a group of 90 people, i mean, it s like a wave that has its own momentum and life to it, and all these voices talking to each other within such a mass group. and being part of that sound, helping to make that sound. yes. you must have known at that age that this was your life, this is what you wanted to do. oh, i knew very young that there was no question i wanted to play the violin. like, really very quickly. even going to music school, for me, which was a difficult thing to do. i was incredibly homesick and, er.sort of did
you ve started your own foundation and your own teaching projects, haven t you? yes. so, the benedetti foundation was begun in 2019, which seems very recently, but we ve done a lot of work since then. so, we put on these sort of mass workshops which has every single level from real beginners to teachers who have been teaching for 20 years and tried to kind of bring that sense of collective celebration of music, participation and appreciation. nice and gently, and slowly. for us, it sjust a continuous sort of readdressing of how can we revolutionise what music education actually looks like to make it as visceral and impactfuland and and relevant as possible? but at the same time, really upholding the incredible traditions of instrumental music and music in education that s been in this country. music plays
you were born and brought up in north ayrshire. what are your earliest musical memories at home? what memories do you have of music being played at home? the bee gees and abba. later on, good dose of shania twain. that was all my dad s taste. my mum definitely had a kenny g record. um. she laughs saxophone? they ll kill me for saying all of this quite like this, but it s the truth! both of your parents were born in italy, weren t they ? yes. was it an italian household culturally growing up? it s a good question. i would say both parents assimilated very concretely and quite deliberately with scottishness and scottish culture, but they also came over very young. my mum was three years old. an italian speaking three year old with an italian mother and scottish father. um.came over to scotland and, er.was sort of banned from speaking italian quite quickly. it was considered to be detrimental to her education and all sorts of things. we know better now. so my mum lost most of her italian,
he wrote a concerto for you, as well. how did that process differ to working with marsalis? mark is absolutely one of a kind. i have loved him, his musicianship, his playing, since he won young musician of the year. the 2006 bbc young musician of the year, mark simpson. cheering and applause. i met him that year. i handed over the prize to him. had you won it the year before? yes. so, i ve known him for a long time. and he has the capacity to delve very deep inside the human condition and suffering and is willing to sit there in order to write music and express music, and that s what he does. he sacrifices a lot. and this concerto born
and then, when i would play, i would be very focused. what did the experience of playing with the orchestra at that age teach you? what did you take away from that, do you think? it s just. . . it s just unreal. there is nothing like the feeling of playing in a full symphony orchestra. and when you have grown to love certain pieces of music and then you literally hear that come to life with a group of 90 people, i mean, it s like a wave that has its own momentum and life to it, and all these voices talking to each other within such a mass group. and being part of that sound, helping to make that sound. yes. you must have known at that age that this was your life, this is what you wanted to do. oh, i knew very young that there was no question i wanted to play the violin. like, really very quickly. even going to music school, for me, which was a difficult thing to do. i was incredibly homesick and, er.sort of didn t make friends immediately, and all kind. was with a very strict, difficul