NicolaBenedetti

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  • Violin

About Nicola

Nicola Benedetti is one of the most sought-after violinists of her generation. Her ability to captivate audiences and her wide appeal as an advocate for classical music has made her one of the most influential artists of today.

Nicola opens her 2025-26 season with a unique and personal solo tour of pre-eminent stages across the UK and Ireland including the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, National Concert Hall Dublin, and the Royal Albert Hall. Coinciding with the release of her new album Violin Café, this marks Nicola’s first solo tour in over a decade, combining popular virtuosic and seductive romantic works, arranged for violin, guitar, accordion and cello.

Elsewhere in the season Nicola returns to the New York and Czech Philharmonic Orchestras with the Marsalis Violin Concerto, to the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Royal Scottish National, Philharmonia and London Philharmonic Orchestras with the Elgar Violin Concerto, and to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor.

Nicola Benedetti is a GRAMMY Award winner (Best Classical Instrumental Solo, 2020), two-time winner of Best Female Artist at the Classical BRIT Awards, and in 2021 was recognised as BBC Music Magazine’s ‘Personality of the Year’ for her online support of young musicians during the pandemic. A long-time leader in music education, she established the Benedetti Foundation in 2019, delivering transformative experiences through mass music events. Nicola was appointed a CBE in 2019, awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music (2017), and an MBE in 2013.

In October 2022, Nicola became the Festival Director of the Edinburgh International Festival. In taking the role she became both the first Scottish and the first female Festival Director since the Festival began in 1947.

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Contact

For availability and general enquiries:

Rachel Bertaut

Rachel Bertaut

Senior Artist Manager

For contracts, logistics and press:

Tia Ling

Tia Ling

Assistant Artist Manager

Representation

General Management with Askonas Holt Partner Managers: North & South American management: Primo Artists Australia & New Zealand: Emblem Artists Germany: Weigold & Boehm

Season Highlights

Oct 2025 - Dec 2025
UK Tour 'An evening with Nicola Benedetti'
12 October 2025 | Anvil Arts, Basingstoke 15 October 2025 | Caird Hall, Dundee 17 October 2025 | Easterbrook Hall, Dumfries 19 October 2025 | Music Hall, Aberdeen 21 October 2025 | Usher Hall, Edinburgh 24 October 2025 | Eden Court, Inverness 28 October 2025 | Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow 31 October 2025 | Ayr Town Hall, Ayr 19 November 2025 | Bridgewater Hall, Manchester 23 November 2025 | National Concert Hall, Dublin 27 November 2025 | Royal Albert Hall, London 29 November 2025 | Lighthouse, Poole 01 December 2025 | Ulster Hall, Belfast 04 December 2025 | Royal Hall, Harrogate For further information, please visit: https://askonasholt.com/project/an-evening-with-nicola-benedetti
Nov 2025
David Geffen Hall, New York
13, 14 & 16 November 2025 Marsalis: Violin Concerto New York Philharmonic David Robertson (conductor)
Feb 2026
Scotland
26 February 2026 | Usher Hall, Edinburgh 27 February 2026 | City Halls, Glasgow 28 February 2026 | Eden Court Theatre, Inverness Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto Scottish Chamber Orchestra Maxim Emelyanychev (conductor)
Mar 2026
Dvořák Hall, Czech Republic
25, 26 & 26 March 2026 Marsalis: Violin Concerto Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Cristian Măcelaru (conductor)
Apr 2026
UK
18 April 2026 | Anvil Arts, Basingstoke 19 April 2026 | Royal Festival Hall, London
May 2026
Scotland
14 May 2026 | Caird Hall, Dundee 15 May 2026 | Usher Hall, Edinburgh 16 May 2026 | Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow Elgar: Violin Concerto Royal Scottish National Orchestra Kirill Karabits (conductor)
May 2026
Kulturpalast, Germany
25 May 2025 | The Dresden Music Festival Elgar: Violin Concerto London Philharmonic Orchestra Edward Gardner (conductor)
Jun 2026
Philharmonie Berlin, Germany
28 June 2026 Elgar: Violin Concerto Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin Jonathan Nott (conductor)
Nicola Benedetti holding her violin

Projects

An Evening with Nicola Benedetti

Nicola Benedetti has curated a unique programme, close to her heart, as she embarks on her first solo tour of the UK and Ireland in over 10 years.

Learn about this project
  • Nicola Benedetti holding her violin

    Projects

    An Evening with Nicola Benedetti

    Nicola Benedetti has curated a unique programme, close to her heart, as she embarks on her first solo tour of the UK and Ireland in over 10 years.

    Learn about this project

News

Press

  • Brahms Violin Concerto

    Philharmonia
    Oct 2023
    • There’s dark soul as well as showbiz fizz lurking in Brahms’s concerto, and Benedetti mined both of those strains, vibrantly accompanied by the orchestra under Cristian Macelaru. The long first movement was full of gutsy attack, and sometimes startling changes of colour and texture, but there was a melancholy streak under the surface, in the shiveringly dark double-stopped chords and Benedetti’s classy, sighing portamenti. The adagio was songlike, impulsive, and she chomped hungrily into the gypsy-inspired finale.

  • Szymanowski Violin Concerto No. 2

    Hallé
    Jan 2023
    • That cadenza itself, in Benedetti’s hands, was more than just virtuoso fireworks. She found beauty in it and brought her imagination to the technically demanding show-off passages. And in the remainder of the piece, which is marked by renewed alternation of character between the solo part (albeit now with a more lively, “folk” feel to it at times) and those of the orchestra’s sound, she sold every note to her listeners.

  • MacMillan Violin Concerto No.2

    Scottish Chamber Orchestra
    Sep 2022
    • ★★★★★ Often exquisitely tender, the violin line was brought to life by the woman for whom it was written. Nicola Benedetti, the concerto’s dedicatee, gave the solo part a consoling richness, shining out of the loneliness and, towards the end, duetting with several orchestral soloists like a developing conversation. She was as expressive in the music’s glimmering pianissimos as in its episodes of wrenching passion. Orchestra, soloist, conductor and composer seemed united in music of total conviction and core-shaking power. This performance gave the audience that rare feeling of being present at the birth of a masterpiece.

  • Prokofiev Violin Concerto No.2 in G minor

    London Symphony Orchestra
    Oct 2021
    • To the many melodious passages she brought her signature sweetness of tone. She has all the requisite virtuosity as well, of course, when it’s called for, but she throws it off lightly: her tone was never abrasive, even in the spiky finale.

  • Mendelssohn Violin Concerto

    Scottish Chamber Orchestra
    Mar 2020
    • But inevitably, Benedetti was the star of the show, and she gave a vividly characterised, deeply involved performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, each movement carefully differentiated: a turbulent, troubled opener, brisk and poised slow movement, and appropriately crisp, strongly defined finale. Even without a conductor, it was a remarkably supple account, with tasteful rhythmic inflections here and there adding to its abundant charm.

  • Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto

    National Youth Orchestra, BBC Proms
    Jul 2019
    • Soloist Nicola Benedetti had been working with the orchestra during their week-long course and the rapport showed. For herself, Benedetti shaped a secure and expansive performance, giving a real kick to the dance sections of the finale. Her encore, from the Fiddle Dance Suite written for her by Wynton Marsalis, kept on swinging as she walked slowly offstage.

    • Spring rebirth came with Benedetti’s bewitching engagement in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto , matched for forward-moving mobility by Wigglesworth (were those full-orchestral Polonaises a bit too fast? Not in context). From the back of the hall, her upper-register sweetness sounded ravishing, and it wasn’t necessary to hear every note in the fast passage-work given the level of heady communication. Benedetti had already shown us what a Mensch she is as an ambassador for musical youth in last year’s BBC Young Musician Prom, and she did so again in a candid and typically generous speech before her encore, forestalling my own lines here by pointing out as a mark of teamwork the way the wind soloists handed lines to one another in the first movement’s second group of themes.

  • Elgar Violin Concerto

    BBC Symphony Orchestra
    Apr 2019
    • And in this gripping performance (the first time she has played the concerto in London), what a thrilling rush of passions she brought to it. With some interpretations you feel as if emotion is being recollected in a haze of nostalgia, regret, dejection or whatever. Not so here.