Nicola Benedetti

Benedetti was born in West Kilbride, North Ayrshire, to an Italian father and a Scottish mother. She started learning to play the violin at the age of four. At age eight, she became the leader of the National Children's Orchestra of Great Britain. By the age of nine, she had already passed the eight grades of musical examinations while attending the independent Wellington School, Ayr, and in September 1997 began to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School for young musicians under Baron Menuhin and Natasha Boyarskaya in rural Surrey, England. At the end of her first year (1998), she played solo in the school's annual concert at Wigmore Hall, and performed in London and Paris as a soloist in Bach's Double Violin Concerto (together with Alina Ibragimova). She played in a memorial concert at Westminster Abbey celebrating the life and work of Yehudi Menuhin.

Benedetti was awarded honorary doctorates from Glasgow Caledonian University in November 2007, and from Heriot-Watt University in 2010, and an honorary degree from the University of Edinburgh in November 2011. She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2013 New Year's Honours, "For services to Music and to charity",and was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March 2017. In May 2017, she was presented with the Queen's Medal for Music, the youngest of the twelve people to receive the award since it was established in 2005.