About Nicola Benedetti
Nicola Joy Nadia Benedetti (born 20 July 1987) is a Scottish classical violinist and festival director. Her ability was recognised when she was a child, including the award of BBC Young Musician of the Year when she was 16. She works with orchestras in Europe and America as well as with Alexei Grynyuk, her regular pianist. Since 2012, she has played the Gariel Stradivarius violin. In 2019, Benedetti founded the music education charity The Benedetti Foundation and became the first woman to lead the Edinburgh International Festival when she was made Festival Director on 1 October 2022. == Early life and education == Benedetti was born in West Kilbride, North Ayrshire, Scotland, to an Italian father and an Italian-Scottish mother. She has an older sister, Stephanie, who is also a violinist and a member of the pop group Clean Bandit. Benedetti started to play the violin aged four with lessons from Brenda Smith. At eight, she became the leader of the National Children's Orchestra of Great Britain. By the age of nine, she had already passed the eight grades of musical examinations while attending the independent Wellington School, Ayr, and, in September 1997, began to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School for young musicians under Lord Menuhin and Natasha Boyarskaya in rural Surrey, England.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.