The magic touch

Performer, educator, campaigner and festival director... in all aspects of her busy career, violinist Nicola Benedetti aims to make music accessible for all, writes Ariane Todes

- Ariane Todes

I've never been a particularly esoteric person,' Nicola Benedetti tells me as we sit down to talk following the press launch of her third Edinburgh Festival. And yet, as she explains the theme of this year's edition, 'The Truth We Seek', I feel I could be speaking to one of my university philosophy lecturers – one of the better ones. Diving straight into existential and epistemological concepts, her sentences extend as she tries to encompass huge ideas while making sure she has preempted every logical possibility and counterargument. She doesn't always finish every sub-clause, but her sense is clear, the meaning profound, and her own pursuit of intellectual truth unrelenting. To be fair, I may have provoked her with my first question. At coffee after the formal press launch, a journalist from a Chinese news service had asked me, 'But this is political, isn't it?' with some perplexity. You can see why she might think that of the theatre programme, which includes financial crisis-focused Make it Happen, a colonialism-framed Faustus in Africa, and censorship-examining Cutting the Tightrope. That seems standard fare for theatre. The classical music offering is uncontroversial, though. Its opening salvo is John Tavener's eight-hour The Veil of the Temple, sung in five different languages, including Aramaic and Sanskrit, and referencing various world religions. But thereafter, concerts are filled with repertoire played by Benedetti's friends and colleagues, from rising stars to international names, as well as folk and world music and a Polish sub-theme, alongside keynote talks examining her main theme of truth seeking. It's hardly a G7 Summit.