Decca Classics announces new recording from Grammy-award-winning violinist Nicola Benedetti

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Nicola Benedetti

01.10.2025

Violin Café will be released on 21 November

The album coincides with Nicola’s first solo tour in over a decade performing at 14 venues across the UK and Ireland

Decca Classics is delighted to announce a brand-new recording from Grammy-award-winning violinist Nicola Benedetti. Violin Café is packed full of popular virtuosic and seductive romantic works, freshly arranged for a new dynamic group of instruments. Soon to be taken on tour, this album reunites Nicola with audiences she has known and been supported by for over 22 years. This is a thank you to the people of all ages, from all across the UK and around the world, who share a deep love of classical music and the violin, whose children Nicola has taught after concerts and whose curiosity of the arts she shares.

This inventive new line-up of instruments delivers a communal, conversational ‘evening cafe appropriate’ sound. A sound with the flexibility to work across genres, cultures and performance environments. The guitar and accordion are beloved around the world, and in the masterful hands of Samuele Telari and Plínio Fernandes, these intelligent, creative arrangements have breathed new life into violin virtuosic classics and seductive lilting melodie. The cello brings an indispensable resonance and grounding in the hands of Thomas Carrol. Nicola is also joined by the wonderful Brìghde Chaimbeul (smallpipes) for the traditional Scottish set, and virtuoso Yume Fujise (violin) for Sarasate’s Navarra.

The Repertoire includes Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasie and Navarra, and Wieniawki’s Polonaise arranged by Steve Goss; Ponce’s Estrellita and Maxwell-Davis’ Farewell to Stromness arranged by Paul Campbell; Bloch’s Prayer and Debussy’s Beau Soir arranged by Simon Parkin, Sicilienne arranged by Juliette Pochin and arrangements of traditional Scottish music by piper Brìghde Chaimbeul.

Singles from Violin Café will be released on 10 October (Farewell to Stromness) and 24 October (Skye Boat Song) and 7 November (Sicilienne) in the lead-up to the full album being available from 21 November.

Nicola embarks on her first solo tour of the UK and Ireland in over 10 years, performing repertoire from Violin Café in 14 venues across the UK and Ireland from 12 October.

Nicola Benedetti commented, ‘The ensemble combination of violin, guitar, accordion and cello came to me in the middle of the night. The standard violin and piano duo has a formality I knew wasn’t right, and this line-up of instruments delivers a communal, conversational ‘cafe appropriate’ sound. Our first rehearsal, given we were tackling brand new arrangements for the first time, had a higher dose of anticipation than is normal. But as we tore through one arrangement after another, we became increasingly bound as a group. We discovered the humour, textural wit and instrumental virtuosity of Stephen Goss’ ‘Carmen Fantasy’. We indulged in the conversational polyphony and sweet sonority of Juliette Ponchin and James Morgan’s ‘Sicilienne’. We were challenged and inspired to bring our best playing to the integrity of Paul Campbell’s ‘Farewell to Stromness’. We searched and gazed our way through the layering of Simon Parkin’s tender ‘Beau Soir’. And I was hypnotised and compelled to follow the stillness, darkness and present-ness of the formidable Bridghe Chaimbeul.’

Nicola continues, ‘Although this formation of musicians, instruments and written arrangements were all brand new, things from the past always have a way of coming back around. And for me this is particularly true of my time at the Yehudi Menuhin School. As we began our first play through for a small invited audience, in order to test out the eclectic mix of pieces for real, not just imagined, people, I realised quite how much relevance this programme had to that time in my life. All the virtuosic pieces, I learnt for the first time in my early teens at the school studying with professor Natasha Boyarsky. I learnt not only the fundamentals of technical playing, but how to deepen the fire, passion and sonority of my playing. But although a fun, fulfilling yet challenging time was had in tackling all those notes and basking in all that charm, the slow, luscious, emotional writing has had my heart from my first days learning the violin. It’s therefore unsurprising that there’s no shortage on this album.’

Nicola Benedetti is a GRAMMY Award winner (Best Classical Instrumental Solo, 2020), two-time winner of Best Female Artist at the Classical BRIT Awards, and in 2021 was recognised as BBC Music Magazine’s ‘Personality of the Year’ for her online support of young musicians during the pandemic. A long-time leader in music education, she established the Benedetti Foundation in 2019, delivering transformative experiences through mass music events. She was made an MBE in 2013, received the Queen’s Medal for Music in 2017, and was appointed a CBE two years later. Since October 2022, she has been the Festival Director of the Edinburgh International Festival, becoming the first woman – and first Scot – to ever hold the position.

Album track list

Wieniawski: Polonaise de Concert Opus 4 (arr. Stephen Goss)

Maria Theresia von Paradis: Sicilienne (arr. Juliette Pochin & James Morgan)

Maxwell Davis: Farewell to Stromness (arr. Paul Campbell)

Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy Opus 25 (arr. Stephen Goss)

Bloch: Prayer From Jewish Life: I (arr. Simon Parkin

Trad: Skye Boat song (arr. Brìghde Chaimbeul)

Trad: A' Choille Ghruamach (arr. Brìghde Chaimbeul)

Trad: Hacky Honey Reel (arr. Brìghde Chaimbeul)

Ponce: Estrellita (arr. Paul Campbell)

Sarasate: Navarra Opus 33 (arr. Stephen Goss)

Debussy: Beau Soir (arr. Simon Parkin)