YMS Co-president violinist Tasmin Little named CBE in King’s Birthday Honours List
We are delighted that our Co-President and alumna violinist Tasmin Little has been named CBE in the King’s Birthday Honours List, in recognition of her contribution to classical music life.
Tasmin enjoyed a multi-award winning and varied career as an international solo concert violinist, touring the globe as soloist with the most acclaimed international orchestras in the top venues of the world. She made 45 commercial recordings, gave many world premiere performances and received numerous accolades, including a Classic BRIT Award, Gramophone Award for Audience Innovation, BBC Music Magazine Personality of the Year Award, BBC Music Magazine Chamber Music Award, Gold Badge Award for Services to Music and a coveted Diapason d’Or.
Renowned for her gifts of communication and presentation, on and off the platform, during the early 1990s she pioneered verbal introductions during performance from the stage to audiences, and in 2008 her ground-breaking project “The Naked Violin” drew a global audience of half a million in a few weeks and resulted in The Southbank Show - the longest-running Arts show on British television – dedicating a full hour’s programme to following the project as she toured. She has appeared on, and made, many television and radio programmes; in February 2021, her 3-week series for BBC Radio 3, “Journeys with my Violin” was widely lauded and was ‘Pick of the Week’ in The Times newspaper. During her 30 year career, she performed 20 times at the BBC Proms, including two concerts at The Last Night of the Proms to a global audience of 100 million, and at Proms in the Park to a live audience of 40,000. She performed twice for HM the Queen and in 2012 was awarded an OBE for Services to Music.
During the pandemic in 2020, Tasmin gave numerous interviews on BBC Radio 4 and was vocal in highlighting the issues faced by freelance musicians, to the extent that she was recently cited as one of the top 10 Classical Music Thought Leaders. She has a consistent track record of advocating music education and has twice been invited to speak in the House of Commons to members of both the Lords and the Commons regarding the importance of education and the Arts in the UK.
Tasmin is an Ambassador for many charities including Help Musicians UK, The Princes Foundation for Children and the Arts, Youth Music, Trees for Music, (helping to replant and sustain endangered Pernambuco wood, used for making violin bows, in the Brazilian rainforest), and she is Vice President of the Elgar Society. In 2019 she became Co-President of The Yehudi Menuhin School.
In 2020 she stepped down from the concert platform in order to devote her time to her other passions: broadcasting, presenting, writing, teaching, mentoring, education and charity work. She gained her Certificate in Mentoring and Coaching from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in January 2021, and has a particular interest in communication, presentation and self-development skills in addition to supporting increased diversity in the workplace.
Commenting on the honour, Tasmin Little CBE said: “I am totally delighted and honoured to have been made a CBE in the King’s first Birthday Honours. It has been a privilege to spend my life in music, both performing and teaching, and I feel truly grateful for all the opportunities I have been given to collaborate with the very best musicians in the world. To be recognised for this with a CBE is really the icing on the cake!”
We send huge congratulations to Tasmin from everyone in the YMS community.