Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson (born October 27, 1978 in Singapore), known on stage as Vanessa-Mae is an internationally known classical and pop musician. Her music style is self-described as "violin techno-acoustic fusion."

She was born to a Chinese mother and a Thai father, on the exactly same date, 196 years later, as the famous and notorious violinist Nicolo Paganini. After her parents separated, her mother married Englishman Graham Nicholson. She grew up in London and is a British citizen.

She began playing piano at the age of three and violin at five.

She was relatively famous in the United Kingdom throughout her childhood making regular appearances on television (for example on Blue Peter) mostly involving classical music and conservative style.

On entering adolescence Vanessa-Mae broke away from her traditional classical influences and became known for her flashy, sexy style appearing in music videos in stylish outfits. Vanessa-Mae appeared on the Janet Jackson album The Velvet Rope playing a violin solo on the song "Velvet Rope".

Vanessa-Mae has received much acclaim and praise for her personal style and talents, but on the other hand has been the subject of controversy as well. Some critics have suggested that Vanessa-Mae's technical and musical abilities are in fact unspectacular and that she is merely a typical product of a music industry attempting to use sex appeal to sell commercialised classical music. Still others feel she is doing a disservice to classical music. She retorts that these critics are too traditional and élitist and because they are unable to appreciate her fusion of classical and pop music nor perform music themselves, they resort to vindictive cynicism.

Some media draw comparisons between Vanessa-Mae and the Finnish classical and pop musician Linda Bravabecause of the use of daring outfits in combination with striking physical qualities on stage. Vanessa-Mae's act can be called decent and well-behaved, where Linda Brava is much more provocative in nature and intent. The British daily newspaper The Sun rated Linda above Vanessa in 1997, though.

In April 2006, Vanessa-Mae was ranked as the wealthiest young entertainer under 30 in the UK in the Sunday Times Rich List 2006. Having an estimated fortune of about £32 million (€46 million) stemming from concerts and record sales of over an estimated 10 million copies world wide, which is an unprecedented achievement for a young female violinist.

--Wikipedia