Nicola: I’ll never play on my femininity
WITH her poster-girl looks and huge musical talent, Nicola Benedetti has long been viewed as a prime candidate for a pop makeover. But the 32-year-old classical violinist has insisted she is determined to fight any attempts to promote her looks above the ‘serious’ music. In an interview before her appearance with the National Youth Orchestra at the BBC Proms today, the Scot said she deliberately avoided playing on her femininity. And, in a blow to any promoters hoping for a Benedetti crossover album, she dismissed popular music as offering ‘no challenge’.
She said she had never wanted to be seen as the poster girl of classical music. Benedetti told the Daily Telegraph: ‘I’ve always tried to fight that by trying to deepen my seriousness as a musician.’
She added: ‘So much of life nowadays is to do with appearance. I’m not saying appearance isn’t important.
‘You just have to keep the visual thing in its place, behave with as much integrity as possible – and for me that means not playing on my femininity, I can’t stand that. I certainly don’t expect to have respect handed to me on a plate just because I’m a woman. That’s not how life works.’
The violinist, from West Kilbride, Ayrshire, has set up a charity, the Benedetti Foundation, which will support musical tuition in schools across the UK. But any suggestion it will give a legup to budding pop stars is dismissed.
She said: ‘Classical music will be at the centre of what we do. You can educate yourself in a few hours to create a pop song on a PC via the internet in your bedroom, if that’s what you want.
‘So for me it would be ridiculous to focus our music education efforts on something which is already ubiquitous, and offers no challenge, and which I think is often cynical and pushed through heavy marketing.’