Page 55 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

higher education because music was her priority. Now, aged 34, she has a fresh

mission in her life: to find a new work-life balance. “I’ve been reading a lot of the

philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment and the recurring theme is a question of
balance,” she says. “We all have to pick our own path through this.”

She aims to get the concerts down to about 60 or 70 a year, but this isn’t happening

yet. She is at the Aldeburgh Festival throughout June and this month gives three

performances, including the Scottish premiere of the violin concerto that Mark

Simpson wrote for her. “I’m in unknown territory at the moment. I have huge
personal challenges ahead of me and there’s no one other than me that can come up

with the right answer.”

One problem is her charisma. Beautiful and fabulously gifted, she is much in

demand, not just to play music but to teach and talk about it. She has been

appointed the first female — and, bizarrely, first Scottish — director of the
Edinburgh International Festival (EIF). The EIF is another way of spreading the

word or, rather, the note.