BBC Music Magazine selects their Favorite albums of Nicola Benedetti

Photo credit: BBC Music Magazine

Who is Nicola Benedetti?

We give you the lowdown on our February issue cover star, who is performing at the 2020 Grammy Awards.

Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti rose to fame in 2004, when she won BBC Young Musician at the age of 16, a competition she has remained an ambassador of ever since. 

She has released a number of acclaimed recordings, from concertos by Glazunov and Szymanowski to an album of Scottish music, which made her the first ever Scottish classical musician to enter the Top 20 of the Offiial UK Album Chart in 2014.

In the 2019 New Year Honours, Benedetti was awarded a CBA for services to music.

She was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2020 for her premiere recording of Wynton Marsalis's Violin Concerto and his Fiddle Dance Suite, both dedicated to her by the composer.

At the beginning of 2020, she launched the Benedetti Foundation, dedicated to putting music at the heart of UK society and bringing music to all children.

The best recordings of Nicola Benedetti
By Freya Parr
BBC Music Magazine
January 19, 2020

Wynton Marsalis 
Violin Concerto; Fiddle Dance Suite
Decca 485 0013 (2019)

The jazz trumpeter and composer’s expansive and eclectic concerto was written for Benedetti. She premieres it on disc here with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Cristian Mačelaru.

Arlene Sierra
Butterflies, Remember a Mountain
Bridge BRIDGE9506 (2018)

Benedetti joins cellist Leonard Elschenbroich and pianist Alexei Grynyuk for the American composer’s second piano trio, described by The Times as ‘a small wonder’.

Shostakovich & Glazunov
Violin Concertos
Decca 478 8758 (2016)

This powerful disc journeys from late Romantic Russia to the 1940s Soviet Union, with Kirill Karabits conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Homecoming: A Scottish Fantasy
Decca 478 6690 (2014)

Benedetti paints a picture of Scotland’s musical landscape. She’s joined by folk singer Julie Fowlis for traditional song, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy.

The Silver Violin
Decca 478 3529 (2012)

Korngold’s lush Violin Concerto is at the heart of a programme of film classics, from Shostakovich’s The Gadfly to the theme for Schindler’s List.