VIOLINIST Nicola Benedetti is to take centre stage with a performance for global hunger charity Mary’s Meals.
The Scottish musician who has Italian ancestry is a keen supporter of the charity, which was set up in Argyll in 2002 and provides hungry children around the world with a daily meal at school.
Now she has agreed to play the violin at a fundraising concert on May 18 next year, with the venue yet to be announced.
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, founder and chief executive of Mary’s Meals, said: “It’s wonderful that Nicola is continuing to support our work and we are very excited about next year’s concert.
“Nicola is exceptionally talented and, by sharing her talents, she will be spreading joy through her music as well as helping Mary’s Meals to reach more hungry children with a daily meal in school.”
The concert is being organised by officials from Italy as part of a series of cultural events aimed at forging links between the country and Scotland.
The Italian Ambassador to the UK has already been in Scotland this month at the Edinburgh International Festival to promote a series of events under the programme Edinburgh and beyond: Italian Music meets Scotland.
Concerts have been organised in areas including Aberdeen, Inverness, Stornoway and Portree featuring folk music from Naples and Rome, blended with Scottish folk songs and dances, as well as a variety of programmes of full classical music for the cello, flute and piano.
Pasquale Terracciano, Italian Ambassador to the UK, is eagerly anticipating Benedetti’s concert. He said: “I wish to say a big thank-you to Nicola Benedetti, the iconic Scottish virtuoso, who is also a living symbol of the close and warm links between our two countries – a link that is growing stronger and stronger thanks also to her big heart and desire to help.”
Ms Benedetti, whose father moved to Scotland from the Italian town of Barga, was raised in Ayrshire and found fame by winning the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year competition in 2004.
Next year’s fundraising concert will help Mary’s Meals to feed more than one million hungry children. Mr MacFarlane-Barrow said: “We are very grateful for the support of the Italian Consul in helping to make this event happen and to Nicola Benedetti for her kindness and generosity in giving her time.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here