International Violinst

Hey guys, now, i'll tell you about a fantastic, famous, and off course skillful female violinist.
She is VANESSA MAE

Have you ever heard her name before? I'll tell a little story about her for you!

Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson was born in Singapore on October 27th, 1978, known as Vanessa Mae. After her parents separated, her mother married Graham Nicholson, a British lawyer who adopted Vanessa-Mae, and the family moved to England when Vanessa-Mae was four years old.

She started playing piano when she was 3 years old, and started playing violin when she was 5 years old.When she was 7, she won a competition for Young British Pianist of the Year. 

But, after that, she decided to focus on playing violin, so she gave up her pianist career. When she was 8 , she travelled to Beijing to continue training being taught by the Maestro. The course was originally scheduled for 3 years, but Vanessa had finished it in few months time. After that, she returned to Europe to receive further training. In 1988 she travelled to Schlezwig-Holstein for summer master-courses, where she trained under professor Felix Andreyevsky. When Vanessa was 11, she passed entrance exams for a one-year course at Royal College of Music. A year later, she became the only child in College's history to gain the 'The Professional Diploma Course' diplomma.

Vanessa-Mae started her concert when she was 10. She played with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, being the youngest solist in history to play Bach's, Mozart's and Kabalevsky's concertos with the orchestra.

In 1991 the whole world celebrated 200th anniversary of Mozart's death, Vanessa performed, along with London Mozart Players, her first internaitonal tournee. She played with the best orchestras, including performances in London with London Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, or London Mozart Players.

Vanessa-Mae also releases some records. When she was 9 she started writing her own cadenzas to Mozart's concertos, at 12 she had 3 albums, two of them containing classical repertoire, the third ranging between Bach, Tchaykovsky, Gershwin, The Beatles, or the theme from 'The red panther'. She is also the youngest violin player ever to record Beethoven's and Tchaykovsky's violin concertos at once. She often declares that she's going to play whatever she likes, no matter if this would be Beethoven, The Beatles, Mozart, Michael Jackson, Prince, Paganini or Elvis Presley - she likes them all.

Vanessa became an extremely popular and well-known person. She is often invited to take part in TV and radio programs.

1995 was a very important year to Vanessa-Mae. That's when "The Violin Player" was released. The album features a mix of classics, pop, rock and techno. In 1995 Vanessa played on Sopot Festival in Poland. The performance turned out to be a huge success. Vanessa-Mae got a completely new publicity and 'The Violin Player' selled in almost 300,000 copies at that time. Vanessa made people interested in violin music and the instrument. All important magazines write about Vanessa-Mae. Both those dedicated to classical music and those writing about all the other genres. Her career is spotted by "The Times", "The Guardian", and most other newspapers worldwide. In 1997 "Storm" was released and gained quite some applause from both critics and audience. Vanessa's star doesn't fade away, she releases even better and more surprising albums. Vanessa Mae was managed by her mother, who owns a private recording label and music agency, until 1999, when Vanessa-Mae sacked her as her manager. In April 2006, Vanessa Mae was ranked as the wealthiest young entertainer under 30 in the UK in the Sunday Times Rich list 2006, having £32 million from concerts and record sales of over an estimated 10 million copies worldwide.

Until now, she was still famous as the international female violinist in the world!

Vanessa Mae website : www.vanessa-mae.com

Thanks for visiting guyss  (^3^)9
See you next post! 

Just Play It!

Heyy, guys, now i'll tell you how the violin was played in this world :D

Solo Violin

A lot of common people think that violin can't be played by one person (solo), because they feel that violin is just the complement of music. But, i'll share a video which prove that solo violin playing is VERY COOL!!

We Found Love (cover) by Adam DeGraff

Duet

It's so fun to play duet with your friends! Sometimes, you must try it, because it will relax your day guys! i'll show you a video of violin duet!

A Thousand Years (cover) by  Jun Sung Ahn and Daniel Jang

You also can play duet with piano, guitar, etc, this video for example :

Safe and Sound (cover) by Jun Sung Ahn and Sherry

 

String Quartet

String quartet is musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a viola playes and a cello player. I'll show you a video of popular Australian/British string quartet. "BOND"! 

Orchestra

 "Orchestra" is the famous music colaboration in our world :D

But, orchestra is not just string instrumental colaboration, it also contains with woodwind , percussion, and brass instrument.And off course violin included!! :) . Other instruments like piano may sometimes be grouped into a fifth section or may stand alone.A smaller-sized orchestra (of about fifty musicians or fewer) is called a chamber "orchestra". A full-size orchestra (about 100 musicians ) may sometimes be called a "symphony orchestra". I won't share a video about orchestra this time, but I will tell you about a famous orchestras in my country, Indonesia !

TWILITE ORCHESTRA

Twilite Orchestra was formed in June 1991. Twilite is a pops orchestra,  with the format of an ensemble composed of 20 musicians.Ensemble is then developed into a full symphonic orchestra with 70 musicians and a choir with 63 members Twilite Chorus. Twilite orchestra was leaded by Addie M.S, the conductor. This Orchestra contais of violin, viola, cello, contra bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, fagott, french horn, trumpet, trombone, bass trombone, tuba, piano/keyboard, harp, drums, electric guitar, electric bass, timpani, and percussion.  Very complete I think ! :O

  There is the pictures of Twilite Orchestra :

The Conductor : Addie M.S.

That's all from me, if you want to know more about Twilite Orchestra, you can visit : twiliteorchestra.org.

Thanks for your visit! Just play your violin! See you later guys~ 

History of Violin

At first,String instrument was plucked. And then how about violin, viola, and cello??

Bowed instrument appeared from the culture of horse rider, from the Central of Asia. For the example, Turkic and Mongolian horseman’s two stringed instrument, which played with horsehair bow. Until now, the bow of violin, viola, and cello, have been made by horse hair, that’s because 

 of horse rider culture.

http://www.davidfinck.com/blog/2012/01/16/horsehair-and-wood-re-hairing-a-violin-bow/

And then, these instrument was spread to East of Asia, China, India, Middle East, and the Byzantine Empire. Some of them, became erhu in China, the rebab in the Middle East, the lyra in the Byzantine Empire and the esraj in India.

Modern violin emerged in early 16th-Century Northern Italy, especially port towns of Venice and Genoa which associated with Central Asia through the trade routes of the silk road.

The modern European violin evolved from various bowed stringed instrument from the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire. Three kind of current instrument which is usually referred as the forerunner of violin is :

1.Rebec (derived from the Arabic bowed instrument rebab and the Byzantine lyra)

http://www.trombamarina.com/instruments/rebec

2.Vielle( one of the most popular instruments of the Medieval period, derived from the lyra, a Byzantine bowed instrument)

http://earlymusichicago.org/photos/NewberryConsortConcertMarch2006/Vielle1.jpg

3.lira da braccio most closely related to vielle

The oldest violin, which have 4 strings, has been made in 1555 by Andrea Amati.By this time, Violin immediately became very popular, both among street musicians and the nobility. Even the French king Charles IX ordered Amati to make 24 violins for him in 1560.

http://pinchgutopera.typepad.com/pinchgut_opera/2009/07/australias-first-lira-da-gamba.html

Great changes of violin’s construction occurred in the 18^th century, especially in the length and angle of the violin’s neck. The majority of the old instrument have been updated fit with this new standard size. Therefore there is a differences in sound and response before and after update.

To this day, instruments from the "Golden Age" of violin making, especially those made by Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù, are the most sought instruments by the collectors and performers.

 

Record sale: The Lady Blunt violin, made by Stradivarius in 1721, £10m

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2006053/Stradivarius-violin-sells-record-10m.html