Virtuoso--Vanessa-Mae

音乐大师--陈美

1. Vanessa-Mae has been called a Paganini in 1)hot pants. Or, to put it another way: she dresses to kill, but you ain't seen nothing yet till you see her pick up a 2)violin.

陈美曾被称为穿热裤的帕格尼尼。或者换种说法：她穿著火辣，但直到她拿起小提琴，你才知道她的厉害。

1.1) hot pants (n.) 热裤 2) violin (n.) 小提琴

2. Half Thai and half Chinese, Vanessa-Mae Vanakom Nicholson was born in Singapore and grew up in London. She 1)took up the violin at the age of five. By the time she was eleven, the Director of the 2)Royal College of Music was calling her a "true child 3)prodigy¹--like Mozart and Mendelssohn."

一半泰国血统，一半华人血统，陈美出生于新加坡，在伦敦长大。她自五岁起开始习琴。到了十一岁时，英国皇家音乐院的院长已经称她为「真正的神童--就像莫扎特与孟德尔颂一样。」

2.1) take up (v.) 学习 2) royal (a.) 王室的，皇家的 3) prodigy (n.) 神童，奇才

3. She was a rising star in the world of classical music, but Vanessa-Mae also had some ideas of her own about music. As a teenager, she began experimenting with her 1)talent, and 2)released The Violin Player, which she called a "techno-3)acoustic² 4)fusion³" 5)album. It 6)featured both traditional and electric violin, hit the U.K. 7)pop charts, and went 8)multi-9)platinum⁴.

她在古典音乐界声誉日隆，但陈美对于音乐有自己的一套想法。青少年时她开始试验自己的才华，并推出《小提琴玩家》──她称之为「计算机合成音乐与听觉特效融和」的专辑，其中以传统小提琴与电子小提琴都有为特色，登上英国流行音乐排行榜，并夺得数张白金唱片。

3.1) talent (n.) 才华 2) release (v.) 发行，推出 3) acoustic (a.) 听觉（特效）的 4) fusion (n.) 融合 5) album (n.) 专辑 6) feature (v.) 以……为特色

4. Some critics objected to the video of Vanessa-Mae playing a techno-pop 1)version of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in a wet T-shirt, and 2)scratched their heads when they heard that she would be playing a violin solo on Janet Jackson's The 3)Velvet⁵ Rope album. Vanessa-Mae responded: "When you're brave enough to do something new, people are always threatened by it."
一些乐评家对于陈美穿著一件湿Ｔ恤演奏计算机合成音乐流行版的巴哈《触技与赋格》曲感到十分不以为然，又听说她会在珍娜杰克森的《华丽的冒险》专辑中表演一首小提琴独奏时，也搔首表示不解。陈美的反应是：「当你有足够勇气去尝试新事物时，人们总是倍感威胁。」

7) pop chart (n.) 流行音乐排行榜 8) multi- 表示 many 的前缀 9) platinum (n.) 铂，白金4.1) version (n.) 版本 2) scratch (v.) 抓，搔 3) velvet (a.) 天鹅绒的

5. Few audiences that see Vanessa-Mae give a 1)live performance have any objections. More often they are left 2)awestruck, 3)roaring for an 4)encore.

看过陈美现场演奏的听众很少人会不以为然。他们大多是感到震慑，大声叫着安可。 5.1) live (a.) 现场的，实况的 2) awestruck (a.) 敬畏的 3) roar (v.) 呼喊，吼叫 4) encore (n.) （法文）经要求而再演唱（奏）的歌曲