Tasmin Little/Piers Lane

Biography In addition to a flourishing career as violin soloist which has taken her to every continent of the world, Tasmin Little has further established her reputation as Artistic Director of two Festivals: in 2006 her hugely successful “Delius Inspired” Festival was broadcast for a week on BBC Radio 3 in July. An exciting range of events, ranging from orchestral concerts and chamber music to films and exhibitions, also reached 800 school children in an ambitious programme designed to widen interest in classical music for young people. In 2008 she begins her first year as Artistic Director of the annual Orchestra of the Swan “Spring Sounds” Festival, which this year will feature two world premieres alongside firm favourites in the English and American repertoire. As a concerto player, Tasmin’s performances in the 2006/07 season took her on a major tour to South East Asia and Australia playing Elgar’s violin concerto celebrating the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth as well as playing other repertoire in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Singapore, Ireland and throughout England. She now play/directs orchestras such as Norwegian Chamber, London Mozart Players, Royal Philharmonic, European Union Chamber Orchestra and Britten Sinfonia. In 2007/08 she joins the London Mozart Players as a soloist and director in a tour of the UK which will also feature her UK conducting debut. She also performs with the Royal Philharmonic, RTE National Symphony Orchestra Dublin, Slovenian Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, EUCO, City of Birmingham Symphony and BBC Philharmonic Orchestras as well as playing the Elgar Concerto with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Leonard Slatkin at her re-engagement at the prestigious Philharmonie. In 2006, Tasmin made her fourteenth appearance at the BBC Promenade concerts in a performance of the rarely heard Glasunov concerto. She continues to champion seldom-performed repertoire and during the 2006/7 season she played Bruch's second violin concerto with the London Philharmonic, the Korngold concerto in Symphony Hall Birmingham and is one of the few violinists who have tackled Ligeti’s challenging violin concerto. Her 2003 tour with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle, during which she performed the concerto at the Proms, Berlin, the Salzburg Festival, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Philadelphia, received unanimous critical acclaim (“the technical command was glorious” – The Guardian; “very beautiful” – Berliner Morgenpost; “a major violin talent” – Philadelphia Inquirer; “a formidable soloist” – New York Times). In 2007 she returned to the work with the Göteborg Symphony and at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Her twenty-three recordings, with repertoire ranging from Bruch and Brahms to Karlowicz and Arvo Pärt have received great critical acclaim. In 2008 she continues her campaign to bring classical music to a wider audience with her ambitious project The Naked Violin. This latest recording features works by Bach, Ysaÿe and Patterson and was released exclusively for download on her website in January 2008. The recording created an extraordinary volume of media interest in newspapers, on television, radio and on the internet, and within only days there were over 6000 international websites linked to Tasmin's site, all talking about the pioneering aspect of the download. In the first month, Tasmin's site received nearly 200.000 hits and more than 2 terabytes of download requests. In addition to continuing her normal concerto and recital engagements both here and abroad in 2008/09, Tasmin will also be undertaking a tour of The Naked Violin, with concerts in halls as well as in the wider community. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.