Vanessa-Mae
The Person
( page 4 )
 

Born in Singapore, and raised in London, Vanessa-Mae has mixed Thai/Chinese parentage and British nationality. A very cosmopolitan education and well-travelled childhood has helped her ascend into her high-profile and prodigiously succesful international career with enviable case.
 
An only child of professional parents, she stunned teachers and family when as a small child of 8, she chose to leave her family home, to settle into a vastly different enviroment and physically challenging physical conditions in Beijing, with a will to study violin with Professor Lin-Yao Ji at the Central Conservatoire of Music. Her independent nature and confident approach to her own music training and experience has continued through her time at the RCM, as their youngest undergraduate, aged 11, up to her leaving succesive mentors Felix Andrievsky and Vasko Vassilev, with their full respect and support, to take up her own chosen career path in music.
 
Outside music, she adores skiing and water skiing. Aside from being honoured with numerous musical awards, not least the coveted Nordoff Robbins Silver Clef International Award, joining the eminent list of previous winners, U2, INXS, Plant and Page , Bryan Adams, and AC/DC, she has also been showered with unexpected non-musical accolades. She is the youngest person ever to be invited to address the 172-year-old Oxford Union, and People Magazine in the USA voted her one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world.
 
Ultimately, it is her multi-million selling recordings that first made her a household name all over the world.