for her work with contemporary composers, including a grammy—winning collaboration with wynton marsalisand setting up her own musicalfoundation. in this episode of this cultural life, the radio four podcast, she reveals her formative influences and experiences, and how her passion for playing was there from the start. i knew very young there was no question i wanted to play the violin. there was no question that that was what i must do and had to do and wanted to do. have you played here much, nicky? they chuckle nicola benedetti, welcome to this cultural life. thank you so much for having me. it's an absolute pleasure. you were born and brought up in north ayrshire. what are your earliest musical memories at home? what memories do you have of music being played at home? the bee gees and abba. later on, good dose of shania twain. that was all my dad's taste. my mum definitely had a kenny g record. um... she laughs saxophone? they'll kill me for saying all of this quite like this, but it's the truth! both of your parents were born in italy, weren't they ? yes. was it an italian household

as wynton marsalis has done, as well.like that before meeting him, a couple of years before meeting him. but you saw him as a kindred spirit? absolutely. it was more that — a kindred spirit. he will always say to me, "don�*t wait. "a lot of people just take care of themselves and their career "until a certain point and then, start the giving back. "don�*t wait. "do these things whilst you�*re young. "you have the relatability for those young musicians "and you have good ideas at this age. "just do it." you�*ve started your own foundation and your own teaching projects, haven�*t you? yes. so, the benedetti foundation was begun in 2019, which seems very recently, but we�*ve done a lot of work since then. so, we put on these sort of mass workshops which has every single level from real beginners, to teachers who have been teaching for 20 years. and tried to kind of bring that sense of collective celebration of music. participation and appreciation. nice and gently, and slowly... for us, it�*sjust a continuous sort of readdre

for her work with contemporary composers, including a grammy—winning collaboration with wynton marsalis her formative influences and experiences, and how her passion for playing was there from the start. i knew very young there was no question i wanted

for her work with contemporary composers, including a grammy—winning collaboration with wynton marsalisast, she reveals her formative influences and experiences, and how her passion for playing was there from the start. i knew very young there was no question i wanted to play the violin. there was no question that that was what i must do and had to do and wanted to do. nicola benedetti, welcome to this cultural life. thank you so much for having me. it's an absolute pleasure. you were born and brought up in north ayrshire. what are your earliest musical memories at home? what memories do you have of music being played at home? the bee gees and abba. later on, good dose of shania twain. that was all my dad's taste. my mum definitely had a kenny g record. um... saxophone? they'll kill me for saying all of this quite like this, but it's the truth! both of your parents were born in italy, weren't they ?

for her work with contemporary composers, including a grammy—winning collaboration with wynton marsalis she reveals her formative influences

he's doing research on wynton marsalis and the blues and whatnot. but but jazz teaches america about democracy before american, what democracy was all about. i mean, the fact that jazz is in new orleans first off, this space, where you have indigenous people of in america along spanish, along with french and along people of african descent. but don't forget, a good portion of black people in new orleans were free blacks from haiti. so they understood this idea of freedom. and then come and they infect new orleans with that. and so the congo square was the space where on sunday because were so many people who are catholic sunday you had all that they could hear all these different rhythms and all these different rhythms come together and then jazz does something no other music had done in history it takes what's not supposed to together. and they play together. so you have a saxophone that is for the marching band, but then it plays with the piano, which is european classical. then the piano then plays with a trap drum set, but instead of using a sim