Nursing a touch of tonsillitis and a cold after visiting bitterly cold Slovenia and Norway, violinist Vanessa-Mae announced to a heat wave-hit Johannesburg news conference yesterday that she would be playing concerts in South Africa next month.
 
"Weather here's very nice," the pint-sized virtuoso, who has yet to exit her teens and who handled Johannesburg news and entertainment personalities with confidence, said at the press briefing, which was held in the gardens of a northern suburbs hotel.
 
Her South African concerts, to be played at a new, hi-tech 2 500-seat venue in Midrand, will start on March 24.
 
"My make-up artist and I have just returned from Slovenia and Norway where they're in the middle of their winter it was bitterly cold, so this heat makes a nice change," she said.
 
Most of her local performances will centre on her unique brand of violin-based rock, but she will also break away from a modern format to perform more traditional pieces with a classical ensemble.
 
The child prodigy says she turned professional "when I was 11 or 12" and adds that her influences range from Mozart through to the Beatles and Whitney Houston.
 
She has played all over the world at venues ranging from New York's Madison Square Garden to Hong Kong during its handover to China.
 
"We started playing a few minutes before midnight in what was part of Britain, and ended the concert in China."
 
Born in Singapore and British-raised, Vanessa-Mae is the daughter of Chinese and Thai parents, both lawyers. She spent most of her childhood in London.
 
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