Nicola Benedetti featured in The Telegraph
‘I want to go for anything that I think is going to significantly impact the cultural life of the UK and Scotland for the better’
Photo credit: Franzo Galo
Nicola Benedetti Interview: ‘Orchestras used to be terrified of bullying conductors’
By Teddy Jamieson
The Telegraph
August 5, 2023
Right now Nicola Benedetti is not allowed to be ill. Even though she is covering her mouth as she coughs and admits that she is dog-tired this Friday lunchtime, “I’m not properly under the weather,” she insists. “That wouldn’t be a possibility, given what is happening in the next three days.”
What is happening is the beginning of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), her first as festival director, which kicks off this evening with the opening concert, Buddha Passion.
For the next three weeks, somewhere in the region of 2,000 classical musicians, opera singers and dancers from around the world will descend on the Scottish capital to add some gravitas to the carbonated fizz provided by the Fringe. Guests this year include the likes of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Berliner Ensemble and the London Symphony Orchestra.
Normally, the Grammy-winning violinist Benedetti would be among their number. But after the opening weekend – during which she’ll play three times – this festival, she is concentrating on her new role. That means Benedetti running around talking to staff and performers and broadcasters – and me.
We are sitting in the bar of the Traverse Theatre, where she is sipping on a sugary peppermint tea to keep herself going.
At 36, Benedetti is the first woman and the first Scot to oversee the EIF. She’s not sure either of these things matter too much. “It’s not like I’m sitting there thinking, ‘God, I have to do particularly well because I’m the first Scot and woman.’”
Still, in her homeland the announcement of her appointment as festival director last year was largely greeted with approval. Only the odd critic questioned if she knew enough about opera, theatre or dance, or raised an eyebrow when she said she was going to continue her performing alongside running the festival.
That was always non-negotiable, she says. “I’m not me without playing the violin. If I thought that [not playing] was going to be something that came with the job then I would not take the job.”
Why did she take the job? “I want to go for anything that I think is going to significantly impact the cultural life of the UK and Scotland for the better. If I think there is a chance I can contribute to that, then I want to do it.”
Nicola Benedetti remains coy about the ring on her left hand
Photo credit: Franzo Galo
She has always believed in the importance of classical music as a progressive force, something that is at the heart of her work with the Benedetti Foundation, the music education charity she set up in 2019.
But being the director of the most famous arts festival in the world may be more of a challenge than anything she has taken on in the past. And not just because of its scale.
This year’s festival arrives at a moment when the arts are struggling in Scotland and in the UK in general. Earlier this week, Christina McKelvie, Scotland’s culture minister, suggested that Edinburgh’s festivals develop more resilient sources of income as pressures on the Scottish government’s budget grow.
Not the kind of news that either Benedetti or Shona McCarthy, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society chief executive, would want to hear.
Earlier this year, McCarthy warned of an “existential threat” to the Fringe Society’s annual festival existence owing to rising costs. As for the EIF, Benedetti has previously said that the fact that the festival happens at all is something of a miracle given the current levels of subsidy.
“It is a very real possibility to be worried about the arts generally,” she elaborates, “because not only is it shapeshifting and trying to work out what it is and what its future looks like, who wants it... but on top of that there is no area of British society that isn’t feeling under resourced and squeezed.“
“You can’t address that without addressing how money flows around the country.”
But does it feel like the arts are under attack? “Yes, but I don’t want to say that the arts are under attack without that larger context. It is symptomatic of us not recognising the long-term enriching quality of certain parts of our society. We are apathetic towards things. We take things for granted. And [there is] greed and self-interest ... That myopia [is] taking over a lot of the decisions we’re making.”
The case for the arts is, she says, simple: they are a civilising force. “These things make us better. They make us better people, they increase not just our intelligence and creativity, but our ability to be good and sound and treat each other well.”
More importantly, Benedetti believes, the arts provide a much-needed outlet for young people to escape other parts of popular culture. “When you combine social media apps with what is dominant on them for young girls – boys too, but in particular girls – imagery that makes a lot of young people just feel paranoid about themselves and their self-image.”
The immediate challenge for Nicola is to grow an audience for classical music while keeping traditionalists happy
Photo credit: Pako Mera / Alamy
The immediate challenge for her now as festival director is to grow an audience for classical music while keeping traditionalists happy. She has plans for the former. “In the first week in the Usher Hall we’re taking out all the seats in the stalls and the audience will be seated on bean bags amongst the orchestra. We’re trying all sorts of things,” she explains.
“A lot of that can be misinterpreted as ‘the music is not enough’. It’s not that at all. It’s trying to get people’s guard down and banish that feeling that you are more worried about your own etiquette and behaviour than you are about just paying attention to what’s going on.“
There are some things about the formality of the concert hall which have been great and have encouraged really focused listening. But there are some things that maybe had unintendedconsequences; that people feel more scared than they do focused.”
This kind of talk may well prompt some to mutter about dumbing down. “You won’t find a bigger believer in classical music being taken seriously than me,” Benedetti counters.
“Everything that I’m doing is with a 20-year study and consideration on how you lead people to the deepest experience with that music.”
Nicola has always believed in the importance of classical music as a progressive force
Photo credit: Stuart Nicol
The first time I spoke to Benedetti, she was just 15 and already deeply impressive. The younger daughter of Scots-Italian parents –her dad was aself-made millionaire businessman –she left her West Kilbride home at the age of nine to take up a place at the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey. Her home now is a mixture of places, “but kind of [still] Surrey”.
Does Benedetti find time for a personal life, I wonder? “Of course I do. I’m very close to my family. In my personal life I have a situation where there is an absolute, unequivocal, mutual support.”
Previously she was in a relationship with cellist Leonard Elschenbroich for 10 years but they separated in 2017.
That said, today there is a rather significant ring on her finger. Has she a partner now? “I don’t really talk about it,” she replies.
Her name has been linked with jazz musician and composer Wynton Marsalis, but when pressed she will only say, “Where would you have read such a thing?”
“I’ll say no comment,” she adds, smiling.
So, some two decades on, what would her 15-year-old self think of the woman she has grown up to be?
“The first thing that [comes] to mind has nothing to do with whatI’ve gone on to achieve at all. More to do with personality development. Would I think I’ve become a better person, a more generous, understanding person? And I would say she would be quite happy with the progress I’ve made.”
Nicola Benedetti rehearsing at the age of 13
Photo credit: Independent / Alamy
Professionally, the progress has been remarkable. Since being named the Young Musician of the Year aged 16, she has gone on to international recognition as one of the great contemporary classical soloists. And she has done it on her own terms.
When she emerged as a rising star in the early 2000s, back when she was a teenager, there was a move in some quarters to “sex up” classical music. Benedetti resisted all of that. She was, she says, always only about the music.
But teenagers can feel pressured in certain situations, can’t they? “I don’t like that victim position; that I was pressured into this or that. We all enter into pressured environments. Unless abuse is inflicted on somebody, we enter into self-negotiations all the time.
“Though I was 15, 16 did I not know what sort of photos I was taking, or clothes I was wearing? Of course I knew.”
The world of classical music has faced its own #Metoo moments in recent years. Last year, a survey by the Independent Society of Musicians found high levels of sexual harassment in the industry. The recent film Tar, starring Cate Blanchett as a controlling conductor dipped into these murky waters.
“It’s a depiction of a bullying environment which, of course, did and can exist in the orchestral world,” Benedetti notes of the film. “I would say it is pretty unusual now. It used to befar more prevalent.”Did she experience it herself? “I would say conductors were the most notorious. Orchestras on Beta blockers and terrified to do the wrong thing.”
This year’s Edinburgh International Festival is her first as festival director
Photo credit: Jane Barlow / PA Wire
As for her own past experiences, “Actually, come to think of it, there were a couple of times of inappropriate behaviour.”
What sort of inappropriate behaviour? Bullying? “All kinds of things. But I could hold my own. Oh yeah. No problem.”
And afterwards? “I wasn’t trying to get more gigs from those conductors.”
For the next three weeks she will be busy as festival director, after which she flies straight to Australia to play with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra –her debut there. “But then I’ll have a little bit of time after that,” she explains. “I’ll be home preparing Brahms’ Violin Concerto because I’m playing it at the end of the month.
”To some that won’t sound like time off.“
That is off. If I can get my health right and get enough sleep for a couple of days and get over all the jetlag, then that will be a real grounding experience. To practise that piece every day for a few hours will be beautiful.”
Buddha Passion, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 8pm on Saturday 5 August; eif.co.uk.
To read the full article, click here.