Vanessa Mae

Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson was born October 27, 1978, in Singapore. Incidentally, she shares a birthday with the classical composer, Paganini. The daughter of a Chinese mother and Thai father, Vanessa relocated to London at the age of 4 with her mother.

By the time she was 3 years old, Vanessa was already taking piano lessons, and 2 years later, she began to study the violin. Despite her multi-talent at playing both the piano and the violin, Vanessa decided to focus on the violin, ironically after winning a prize at the British Young Pianist of the Year Competition.

The former (and youngest) student of Professor Lin Yao Ji of the Central Conservatoire of China, and of Felix Andrievski of the Royal College of Music in London, the wonderkid was set to hit the stage. She began performing early in her career, as she performed with the Philharmonie Orchestra at the age of 10.

Her skilled violin-playing was evident by audiences and especially those in the industry -- the Director of the Royal College of Music even hailed Vanessa as a "true child prodigy, like Mozart and Mendelssohn."

No doubt, even being compared to such classical greats is an honor in itself, and by the time she was 13, Vanessa had gone on an international tour with the London Mozart Players and recorded both Tchaikovsky's and Beethoven's Violin Concertos (making her the youngest in the world to have completed such a feat).

When Vanessa began to work on her album, The Violin Player, she already had 3 classical recordings under her belt, as well as her debut and sophomore albums, Violin and Kids' Classics.