Tasmin Little (born 13 May 1965) is an English violinist.
She was born in London, where she studied under Pauline Scott at the Yehudi Menuhin School and later at the Guildhall School of Music. She came to prominence when she was a string section finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 1982. Her father is George Little, the English TV actor [1].
In 1988 she made her professional solo debut with the Halle Orchestra. In 1996 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bradford.
She has now established an international reputation, and has recorded violin concertos by Bruch, Brahms, Sibelius and others, giving some their first recordings — or second, as with Edmund Rubbra's. She has premiered works, including Stuart MacRae's violin concerto at the 2001 BBC Proms. The University of Bradford has named its music centre after her.
On 10 March 2006, The Independent newspaper wrote "Tasmin Little was ideal to represent the Menuhin School's alumni. She is a true successor: international star, enthusiastic chamber player, and now conducting, too".
In addition to a flourishing career as violin soloist which has taken her to every continent of the world, Tasmin Little has further established her reputation as Artistic Director with her hugely successful "Delius Inspired" festival, which was broadcast for a week on BBC Radio 3 in July 2006. The festival, which comprised events ranging from orchestral concerts and chamber music to films and exhibitions, also reached 800 school children in an ambitious programme designed to widen interest in classical music for young people.
In the 2005/2006 season, Tasmin performed concertos in Sweden, Slovenia, Iceland, Denmark, Spain, Belgium as well as London (including the BBC Proms). Her recent chamber music tours have ranged from a UK tour in Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall to Brazil, Colombia and Peru.
She now plays/directs orchestras such as the Norwegian Chamber, Britten Sinfonia and Royal Philharmonic. During her recent tour with the Britten Sinfonia, her 1000th professional performance at London's South Bank Centre resulted in the following review in The Independent: "The second half evinced an extraordinary quality of sharing, as you expect to find in a trio or quartet.... with both Little and Outram at the front for Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante. Usually this work feels like a double concerto, but here the lead role passed around, with soloists determined to cooperate rather than compete. All the performers succeeded, not only in placing the work before its public but in drawing listeners into its heart".
In 2006, Tasmin made her fourteenth appearance at the BBC Proms in a performance of the rarely heard concerto by Alexander Glazunov. She continues to champion seldom-performed repertoire and during the 2006/7 season she will play Max Bruch's second violin concerto with the London Philharmonic, the Korngold concerto in Symphony Hall, Birmingham. She is one of the few violinists to have tackled Ligeti's challenging violin concerto - according to an interview on BBC Radio 4, only four violinists in the world currently have this in their repertoire. During her 2003 tour she played the work with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle at the BBC Proms, in Berlin, at the Salzburg Festival, New York's Carnegie Hall and in Philadelphia. In 2006/2007 she has returned to the work by performing it with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.
In 2007, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edward Elgar, she has performed his violin concerto on a major tour to Southeast Asia and Australia.
She has made 23 recordings, with repertoire ranging from Max Bruch and Brahms to Mieczysław Karlowicz and Arvo Pärt. Orchestras she has played with throughout her career include the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Berlin Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Thorington Players, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic and with conductors including Kurt Masur, Simon Rattle, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Neeme Järvi, Leonard Slatkin, Rostropovich, Daniele Gatti, Rozhdestvensky, Gerard Schwarz, Tadaaki Otaka, Charles Mackerras, Yehudi Menuhin, Andrew Davis and Roger Norrington.
Tasmin plays a 1757 Guadagnini violin and has, on loan from the Royal Academy of Music, the "Regent" Stradivarius.