First Benedetti Session receives praise from media

Nicola Benedetti at the first Benedetti Session

Nicola Benedetti‘s new series of Benedetti Sessions has debuted this weekend to great fanfare in Glasgow! Held at The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall from January 3-5, 2020, the event involves 350+ youngsters plus teachers, tutors and ambassadors.

Ken Watson from The Scotsman wrote, 
“It’s true that this inaugural Benedetti Session – repeated in London over the weekend, before heading to Dundee in March – was a roaring success. I sensed for myself the tangible atmosphere of positivity, creativity and fearlessness that reaped musical results way beyond anyone’s expectations, even Benedetti’s. This was about bringing music alive, setting the highest bar, seeing performance as a holistic skill embracing poise, risk, ambition, emotion and the confidence to address an audience spontaneously, intellectually and personably. The weekend’s performances were instant proof that, when the stimulus is right, when teachers are given the latitude to follow their own instincts, there’s no limit to the heights that can be achieved.”

BBC News Scotland published, “More than 350 youngsters travelled from across the country to the city’s Royal Concert Hall to take lessons from one of Scotland’s most recognisable musicians.”

Melanie Mcdonagh of the Evening Standard said, “If you had a fantasy music teacher it’d have to be Nicola Benedetti. She’s that fabulous cocktail of technical brilliance, kindness, no-nonsense realism (“It’s a fantasy that anyone can play the violin”), unselfconscious beauty and commitment to the life-changing potential of well-taught music that makes for a brilliant teacher as well as a stellar concert violinist. She has two strings to her bow (the bow in question belonging to her own Stradivarius): performing and teaching.”

BBC Scotland News covers the launch of the first workshop with this feature: