Tasmin Little has not retired. Despite announcing in 2019 to her audience, fellow musicians and the industry that she would be ‘stepping down from the concert platform’, and not placing bow to string since her farewell Southbank Centre concert at the end of 2020, the much-loved British violinist is busier than ever.
Yet, she no longer owns a violin, having sent her cherished instrument and bow to a new home following that final performance. So, no personal practice in the privacy of her house, nor playing with friends and family, and no practical demonstrations for students during masterclasses.
Some would consider this a rather stark decision, particularly for someone whose life was intimately bound with the instrument since attending the Yehudi Menuhin School from the age of eight. But for Tasmin Little, the decision makes perfect sense – and surprisingly, is one that she came to during her 20s.
‘I think the long and short of it is that I’m a communicator,’ she explains, ‘and for the majority of my life I’ve used my violin for this purpose. But I’m just as comfortable using my voice and my vocabulary. And I never said I was going to retire – I’m a long way off retirement.’
The daughter of theatre and screen actor George Little, the young Tasmin may have shown prodigious skill as a violinist, but, encouraged by her father, honing her skills as an orator and writer also formed a crucial aspect of her upbringing. Both parents were cultural enthusiasts, attending museums and galleries in addition to concerts, and ‘watching people perform’ in myriad ways ‘other than musically’ was a common family activity.
It’s unsurprising then, that in her 50s, Tasmin Little was increasingly feeling the lack of ‘other things in my life’ following decades of near 24/7 dedication to performing. ‘Because I’d always been interested in new works and broadening the repertoire, I’d be preparing and performing a huge number of pieces throughout the year, sometimes as many as 20 different violin concertos in a season and a vast range of recital repertoire too.
‘There were no holidays and certainly no weekends, and weirdly I felt culturally undernourished,’ she says. ‘I know that sounds peculiar, but I had no time to go to the theatre or the cinema or to see an exhibition.’
The other side of the equation was a very practical desire not to see her technical skills deteriorate as she became older. ‘I never wanted to go downhill,’ she says matter-of-factly. ‘I never wanted people to say, “She used to be good” or “That was good musically, but what a pitty about the technique.” And although my playing was still sound as I entered my 50s, I had to ask myself, did I want to be putting on a long ball gown to perform in my 60s? Sure, plenty of people do it successfully, but it wasn’t for me.’
Sealing the deal was a finger injury in 2019 – the only major injury of the violinist’s intensely busy career – which forced her to stop playing for eight weeks of recovery. How would she cope psychologically with being away for her instrument for such a lengthy amount of time? It turns out very well – a realisation that was strengthened as the pandemic hit in early 2020.
‘At that point I was using my voice a lot,’ she says. ‘I did an enormous number of interviews talking about the plight of musicians and wrote articles on the impact of both Covid and Brexit. Because I wasn’t attached to an institution or orchestra, I felt able and willing to speak up on the behalf of others. It felt natural.’
As well it might, for Little, even at her busiest as a performer, was never a musician to shy away from using her voice. Alongside a career that encompassed 45 commercial recordings, multiple international tours, and no less than 20 performances at the BBC Proms, she could also be found on television and radio sharing her love of music, in the House of Commons advocating the importance of music education, and acting as an ambassador for charities such as Help Musicians UK and Youth Music.
As far back as the early 90s she was speaking to audiences from the stage in her pioneering verbal introductions to concerts – an impulse that found particular success in 2008’s ‘Naked Violin’ project, which offered free downloads and introductions to performances on her website, leading to workshops in non-traditional concert venues such as schools, hospitals and prisons.
Snap forward to that life-changing decision to part ways with the violin, and Little has grabbed the opportunity to develop her other passions with both hands. She has continued to give masterclasses for young musicians, expanding her involvement to incorporate all the major London colleges, in addition to specialist music schools like Chethams and the Purcell School.
She’s also been joint director of the Menuhin School with Daniel Barenboim since 2019, though she’s at pains to point out that this unpaid post is more about shaping an ethos for the school than taking part in its day-to-day running: ‘I knew Yehudi quite well and understand what he would and wouldn’t have supported, so providing that personal guidance is a big part of what I do’. She adjudicates for select competitions, too – last year she sat on the jury of the Carl Nielsen Competition and next year she will head to Norway for the Princess Astrid contest.
But more than this, she’s built on the work she has done previously for BBC Radio 3 (including 2021’s three-week series Journeys with my Violin) to develop an eight-part ‘flexible conversation’ series with New Generation Artists, providing an insight into ‘who these people are outside their amazing musicianship’. Called Backstage Pass, the series takes as its premise the idea of ‘two musicians having a discussion in their dressing room’.
So far, so standard, as such activities fall firmly within the musical sphere. Perhaps more intriguing, however, are Little’s activities outside this realm. He contributions to the China Current, a relatively new English-language website dedicated to all things Chinese with an enormous global audience, have taken her into decidedly journalistic territory.
As the website’s Cultural Correspondent, Little is responsible for conceiving, writing and recording two programmes per month on topics of cultural significance – from the Butterfly Lovers Concerto to Chinese dance, to the uses of caterpillar silk, to the development of the Chinese hotpot. Some of her recent programmes have generated a whopping 1.2m views.
Then, she’s also built on the qualification in mentoring and coaching she earned from the Guildhall in January 2021 to join a company called Mentore as an advisor for people from the business world. At first glance a completely left-field step, the more Tasmin Little talks about her transferable skills, the easier it is to see how she is such an asset to the roster.
‘I’ve always been interested in people and how we can get in our own way psychologically, whether it’s on stage or in any number of areas. Business – presenting to clients and so on – can be a performance. But more than that, gathering a team is like working with an orchestra or a chamber group. The cooperative skills are identical. It’s about how you use language to its best effect – and moulding that language to the group of people you’re addressing. You wouldn’t necessarily speak to the board or your sponsor in the same terms that you use for the immediate team around you.’
But, of course, Little is still, at heart, a performer and as much as coaching and mentoring behind the scenes can be fulfilling, she will always relish the opportunity to be on stage. ‘I do miss audiences,’ she admits, ‘so I’m very glad that I’m still standing in front of people in different capacities. For instance, I narrated Carnival of the Animals at the Cambridge Festival this year, and was also a speaker at the Benjamin Britten Lowestoft Statue fundraiser at the Wigmore Hall in October.’
Does she experience the same nerves she felt with violin in hand? ‘Whenever you stand in front of people you’re going to get a rush of excitement,’ she replies. ‘I’m not going to call it nerves. But when I make a speech, I’m aware that I have a message to deliver – just as with my violin I had a message to deliver through the music.’
As we finish our interview, news comes through that Tasmin Little’s CBE, awarded in the King’s June 2023 Birthday Honours List, will be presented to her at Windsor Palace on 12 December. Perhaps there might be a few nerves on the day, particularly if Charles himself performs the investiture? But as I formulate the question, I realise how absurd such a notion must be to this strong, unflappable woman.
After all, at the presentation of her OBE in 2012, she and the Queen chatted merrily about a mutual love of Liverpool, where Little had twice performed for the monarch. For Tasmin Little, such doubts are anathema – how else could she have so resolutely changed the path of her life and career, and even more importantly, made such a success of it?