According to Wikipedia (citing Guinness World Records), Vanessa–Mae was "the youngest soloist to record both the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky violin concertos", aged 13.
Vanessa–Mae Vanakorn was born in Singapore on 27 October 1978. After adoption by a British father, she moved to London at the age of 4 where she began playing the violin. At the age of 8 she embarked upon a period of study in Beijing, and she made her professional debut at a music festival in Germany, aged ten.
Her first pop–style album, The Violin Player – produced and mainly written by Mike Batt, and released in 1995 – reportedly sold four million copies.
She competed for Thailand (her natural father's home country) in alpine skiing, at the 2014 Winter Olympics. She said she'd "started skiing around the same time as I began playing the piano, at around four, before moving to the violin at five ... [it had been my] dream to be a ski bum since I was 14." In 2009 she took up residence in the Swiss alpine resort of Zermatt. In 2010 she told The Telegraph, "I am British, but realistically there is no way I could represent my own country. But because my natural father is Thai, they have accepted me."
She came last of the 67 competitors that finished the Olympic event, although 23 others failed to finish.
© Haydn Thompson 2025