Nicola Loud (born 1975) is a British

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

ist who, in 1990 at the age of 15, became

BBC Young Musician of the Year BBC Young Musician is a televised national music competition broadcast biennially on BBC Television and BBC Radio 3. Originally BBC Young Musician of the Year, its name was changed in 2010. The competition, a former member of the European Uni ...

Early life and career

She studied at the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...

with her principal tutor

György Pauk György Pauk (26 October 1936 – 18 November 2024) was a Hungarian violinist, chamber musician and music pedagogue. Biography Pauk was born on 26 October 1936 in Budapest, Hungary, the son of Imre Pauk and Magda (nee Lustig). His father was a ...

who described her as: "Very musical, with fantastic flair and presence - one of the most talented British violinists I had ever come across.". From London she went to study in New York City with Cho-Liang Lin at the

Juilliard School of Music The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became the Juilliard School, named afte ...

. Loud has performed as a soloist with most of the major UK

orchestras An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...

and also performs

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...

. In 2001 she created her one-woman show which features a wide range of repertoire including classical, jazz and film music. In 2003, Nicola Loud was awarded an

ARAM Aram may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Aram'' (film), 2002 French action drama * Aram, a fictional character in Japanese manga series '' MeruPuri'' * Aram Quartet, an Italian music group * ''Aram'' (Kural book), the first of the three ...

by the

and in 2008 became a television presenter for the BBC, co-hosting the concerto final of

in Cardiff. As a past winner, she was also featured in a documentary celebrating 30 years of the competition, and provided the commentary for the

Eurovision Young Musicians 2008 The Eurovision Young Musicians 2008 was the fourteenth edition of the Eurovision Young Musicians, held at the Rathausplatz in Vienna, Austria, on 9 May 2008. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Österreichischer ...

program on

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

Personal life

In 2012, Loud married former MP

Rupert Allason Rupert William Simon Allason (born 8 November 1951) is a British former Conservative Party politician and author. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Torbay in Devon, from 1987 to 1997. He writes books and articles on the subject of esp ...

, who writes about espionage under the pen name Nigel West.

References

External links

* 1975 births Living people Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Juilliard School alumni 21st-century British classical violinists {{violinist-stub