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Vanessa Chen Biography & Facts

Vanessa-Mae (Chinese: 陈美; pinyin: Chén Měi; born 27 October 1978), also called Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson, is a Singaporean-born British violinist with album sales reaching several million, having made her the wealthiest entertainer under 30 in the United Kingdom in 2006. She competed under the name Vanessa Vanakorn (Thai: วาเนสซ่า วรรณกร, romanized: Wa-nes-sa Wan-na-kon; her father's surname) for Thailand in alpine skiing at the 2014 Winter Olympics. She was initially banned from skiing by the International Ski Federation (FIS) after participating in a qualifying race allegedly organised to enable her to qualify for the Winter Olympics. An appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport led to the ban being nullified, citing lack of evidence for her own wrongdoing or any manipulation. The FIS later issued an apology to her. Early life and education Vanessa-Mae was born on 27 October 1978 in Singapore, to Singaporean mother Pamela Soei Luang Tan and Thai father Vorapong Vanakorn. After adoption by a British father, she moved to London at the age of 4 where she began playing the violin, having already started the piano in Singapore. At the age of eight Vanessa-Mae embarked upon a period of study with Professor Lin Yao Ji at the National Conservatoire of Music in Beijing. Musical career Vanessa-Mae made her professional debut when she was ten at a music festival in Germany. At age thirteen, Vanessa-Mae became the youngest soloist to record both the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky violin concertos, according to Guinness World Records. Her first pop-style album, The Violin Player, was released in 1995. She appeared on the 1997 Janet Jackson album The Velvet Rope playing a violin solo on the song "Velvet Rope". Vanessa-Mae appeared in producer George Martin's compilation and covers album In My Life in 1998. She is featured on Track #5 with her violin rendition of the 1969 Beatles song "Because". She was managed by her mother until Vanessa-Mae fired her in 1999. In May 1998, she was part of the interval act at the Eurovision Song Contest taking part in Birmingham at the National Indoor Arena. In June 1999 she played at the Michael Jackson & Friends concerts in Seoul and Munich. On 7 March 2002 Vanessa-Mae performed a variation of Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons – "Summer: III. Presto" during the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Paralympics. In April 2006, Vanessa-Mae was ranked as the wealthiest young entertainer under 30 in the UK in the Sunday Times Rich List 2006, having an estimated fortune of about £32 million. In October 2011, Vanessa Mae performed for Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov during his birthday celebration in Grozny reportedly receiving US$500,000 for her appearance. Composition Vanessa-Mae has occasionally recorded her own compositions. Her 1997 album China Girl: The Classical Album 2 included two pieces in which she shared a writing credit: Violin Fantasy on Puccini's 'Turandot' and Reunification Overture, marking the reunification of China and Hong Kong. In 2017, ClassicFM compiled a list of the 300 best selling classical albums in the 25 years it has been running. Vanessa-Mae entered three times. The Classical Album 1 reached 244, Storm reached 135 and her debut mainstream album The Violin Player is the 76th best selling. The site claims that her total album sales make "her the biggest-selling solo violinist in the chart". Skiing career Vanessa-Mae stated that she "started skiing around the same time as I began playing the piano, at around four, before moving to the violin at five", and that it had been her "dream to be a ski bum since I was 14." In 2009 Vanessa-Mae took up residence in the Swiss alpine resort of Zermatt. In August 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 registered as a Thai alpine skier. Qualifying event In 2014, Thailand had no Alpine skiers in the top 500, and Olympic rules allowed such countries to send one man and one woman to the Olympics slalom and giant slalom, based on alternative criteria: The skier must have 140 points or less, smaller scores being better under the International Ski Federation (FIS) system, while starting at least five internationally recognised slalom or giant slalom events. At the request of Vanessa-Mae's management and the Thai Olympic Committee, a giant slalom competition was organised by the Alpine Ski Club Triglav and took place on 18 and 19 January 2014 at Krvavec in Slovenia, and would be the last chance for Vanessa-Mae to achieve the FIS-recognised score to qualify for the February 2014 Olympics. The event included a national junior championship, in which she was 14 years older than any of the competition. The event put her score under the 140-point average, dropping it from 269.44 on 11 January to 131.15 at the end of 19 January. Her manager Giles Holland said "It would appear that she's done it. She's done it by a whisker, but she's done it." FIS confirmed her eligibility to compete in the 2014 Olympics, with Ana Jelusic of the FIS mentioning that the Krvavec results "ticks all the boxes". A Swiss race on 3 and 4 February raised her score to 171.09. Olympics She was one of two alpine skiers who represented Thailand at the 2014 Winter Olympics, where she competed under the name of "Vanessa Vanakorn" (วาเนสซ่า เมย์ ตัน วรรณกร; Vanessa May Tan Vanakorn). On 18 February 2014, Vanakorn finished 67th of 90 skiers, with a time of 1:44.86 on her first run at giant slalom, 26.98 seconds behind the leader. She started in the 87th position, representing her relative ranking in the world giant slalom rankings. In run 2, she had a time of 1:42.11, 24.21 seconds behind the leader of run 2. She started 74th in run 2, the last starter for run 2. At the end of the event, she had a total time of 3:26.97, 50.10 seconds behind the gold medal winner, Tina Maze of Slovenia. She was last of the 67 racers who finished, although 23 other racers failed to complete the race. Olympic results Investigation and appeal On 10 July 2014 four Slovenian ski competition organisers were reported to have each been given four-year bans on working with Slovenian Ski Union (Smučarska zveza Slovenije) and FIS competitions because of supposedly fixed Sochi Winter Olympics qualifications for the Thai ski team at Krvavec in January 2014 – with the only goal to successfully qualify Vanessa Mae. However, no formal bans were ever handed out. On 11 November 2014, the FIS Hearing Panel issued its own findings about the Krvavec event less than 10 months earlier: The weather was such that no regular race could be held; the competition's referee said that "any comparable competition in Slovenia would have been cancelled". A previously retired competitor took part in the alleged competition solely to lower (improve) the scores of the participants. The official results of "approximately 23.... Discover the Vanessa Chen popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Vanessa Chen books.