Word: violiniste
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...anyway. But to judge from a fresh crop of young female performers, the dowdy, male-dominated world of classical music is in for a long-needed injection of glamour and, yes, sex appeal. String players all, the women present images ranging from the frank sensuality of electric violinist Vanessa-Mae, 17, to the girl-next-door allure of Leila Josefowicz, 18, to the more mature charms of Canadian cellist Ofra Harnoy, 30, and sultry new-music violinist Maria Bachmann, 35. And then there's the all-female violoncello quartet known collectively as Cello. The group is making records, performing widely...
What they see can be eye catching. The Thai-Chinese-British violinist who goes by the name Vanessa-Mae (full name: Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson) has a new album, The Violin Player, climbing up the worldwide pop charts on the strength of her disco-driven version of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. A photo on the single from the album features the slim, pretty teen fiddling away while standing in the Mediterranean in a soaking-wet see-through white shift. "If as a result of this, people see the violin as a fresh, trendy, up-to-date...
...CASE OF MOST OF THESE artists, the performance level is quite high. It's difficult to say how good a violinist Vanessa-Mae is; the combination of her electric fiddle and the syntho-pop ambiance makes serious evaluation difficult. But there is no doubt about the talent of Leila Josefowicz, whose Carnegie Hall performances of the Sibelius Violin Concerto with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony two months ago were revelatory. An effortless technique and a rich tone that will only grow in size and warmth as she matures indicate that Josefowicz is one to watch...
Born in Toronto, the young violinist grew up in Los Angeles and trained at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music. On her first CD, just released, she's being marketed a bit more wholesomely than her peers. "There is a fine line between really being able to convey something fresh and new and likable, and going over the top," observes Lisa Altman, vice president of Philips Classics, Josefowicz's label. "I don't think we've done that with Leila. She's got that Ivory Soap-Seventeen magazine type of appeal. We didn't want to take a short-term...
...instrumentalists have been much rarer in real life. During the first half of the 20th century, the severely beautiful Erica Morini, who died last month at 91, was one of the few who could lay claim to first-rank status. And Morini bristled at her categorization as a female violinist. "A violinist is a violinist, and I am to be judged as one--not a female musician," she said...