According to Richard Marcus, we all have our "Nigel Kennedy stories." He tells us that "supposedly there is a small potted tree in Toronto's Roy Thompson Hall that is now known as 'the pot that Nigel peed in.'" Yes, well. Probably the less said about that the better ! But we do have our individual experiences of Nigel.....maybe it's a concert we went to or even just a brief encounter with him that stays in the memory. Whatever, let's share. Send in your story, even if it's only a few sentences. If you have a picture, send that too. Your chance to do Nigel Kennedy ! Can you resist it ?
We had booked tickets for Nigel Kennedy’s jazz
quintet months ago. Consequently, I was expecting the day of the 23rd of
September to start with fireworks and celebrations, as I had been waiting for
the concert eagerly for several months. But the Tuesday morning started pretty gloomy and
ordinary: my old broken car would not start, at school I could not stand the
loud, unpleasant and ignorant teenagers whom I did not want to teach and who
did not want to learn. Finally, when my working day was over, yet other
disasters had to strike before the Big evening: my husband was sulking..., and at
4 p.m. announced he would not come to the concert. “But you can’t do that, the tickets were very
expensive, and you wanted to come to this concert!”, I said. “Return them, sell
them at the door, do what you want”, he answered passively. There wasn’t any point taking someone to a concert
who was going to sulk all the way through, was there? Let’s face the truth; we
women nag a lot, but, oh boy, don’t men sulk even more? And they think the way
to attract our attention is by cancelling our plans and stay at home instead
and pamper them, as they feel so sorry about their miserable lives! But I was
not prepared to do that. I put on my semi-evening clothes, my semi-precious
jewellery and my evening make-up, took my 14-year-old boy and our former art
critic grandma and headed to London. I have to say, the journey to the concert wasn’t
particularly pleasant either. The train from Hertfordshire at 17.30 was full of
Arsenal supporters rushing to Finsbury Park, and we had to stand in the train
cuddling their massive bodies, while not sharing their passion for the match.
But at least they looked happy and cheerful for a change, I thought. We were all
looking forward to some excitement after all. At London underground we were
told to get off before Shepherds Bush station, so we had to run couple of miles
to get to the Shepherd’s Bush Empire at about 18.30, sweating, tired and out of
breath. While my family went in to take their seats, I
stayed outside and tried in vain to
return my spare ticket to the box office, and then made a hopeless attempt to
sell it to the latecomers. It turned out that most of the people coming to the
concert were Kennedy’s guests, and did not need a ticket. One music student
from Guildhall explained that everyone had received an e-mail that there were
free tickets to see Kennedy’s Jazz band. Very kind of Kennedy to invite so many
guests, I thought, as I watched people picking up their free tickets and
backstage passes. Meanwhile a very enthusiastic black trader (except myself
there was another one!) was trying to buy and sell tickets on spot and make
instant cash. Soon I was fed up, and I ended selling my spare ticket to him for
a fiver, which he was supposed to
resell straight away for £25 or £30, as soon as I had disappeared from his
site; good on you, man!
JASMINE'S EXPERIENCE AT SHEPHERDS BUSH: SEPTEMBER 23, 2008
A very nice evening with Nigel Kennedy..........
Seeing and hearing very closely, intimate and cosy !
(Courtesy nicerendezvous.com)
So, my Tuesday of the 23rd of September was quite miserable until 19.30, when I finally stepped inside the Shepherds Bush Empire concert hall. I liked the intimacy and the cosyness of the place, and I was glad that I could see and hear musicians very closely, unlike the grand Royal Albert Hall and other huge venues, where artists seem miniature figures from distance.
Finally, I was sitting next to my 14-year-old boy,
waiting eagerly for Kennedy to appear. He turned up just after 8 p.m. with his
electric violin in one hand, a mug in the other and saluted the audience with
it. The band followed him on the stage, and without introduction they started
playing. After the first few bars, I forgot all about my miserable day, the
school, my broken car, my sulking husband, my dreadful journey, my past, my
present or even the future. I had heard Kennedy so many times on TV, CD, YouTube and so on, but seeing him playing the violin was just something very
different: it was out of this world!
The way Kennedy connects to his audience is very
different from any other classic concerts I have been to. He loves and
appreciates people who have come to see him, and he wants to be loved back. But
who doesn’t, you may say? Well, that is
true, but some great masters are not that sensitive to the public, they can give
an impression they are playing for themselves, not for the little person in the
audience. With Kennedy, I feel he plays only for me, and I bet everyone else in
the audience feels the same way. His performance seems incredibly intimate,
sensual and moving. I have to say that some members of the audience were
annoyingly chatty, perhaps they thought they could get away with being noisy as
this was not a typical concert. But they were shushed by some brave members of
the public to my great relief.
Kennedy’s original compositions were all inspired
by something or someone. In the first part of the concert the band played ‘A
Nice Bottle of Beaujolais, Innit,' inspired by wine, as Kennedy said, it had a
very melodic, swinging tune, one of the most memorable melodies I have ever
heard. I love the music of Carlos Santana, so this type of cool, Latin jazz was
perfect for me, and the audience seemed so absorbed in the tunes of the mellow
wine; I looked around and wondered at one point if anyone was still breathing.
An
article in a ‘respectable’ paper said recently that Kennedy’s improvisation skills
were not as good as his violin playing. Has he missed Kennedy’s improvisation
in ‘A nice bottle of Beaujolais ? ' Kennedy’s improvisation in this piece is as
good as any famous jazz piece you can think of. Kennedy’s solo is splendid
here, the melodic development starts slowly and goes faster and faster until
the sounds collapse in a cascade. The piano solo played by the young Polish
pianist Piotr Wylezol is remarkable and is one of the highlights of the piece.
Piotr Wylezol.........a remarkable piano solo
(Courtesy Jeff)
Another incredible tune was in the 'Hills of Saturn,' dedicated to the death of one of Kennedy’s favourite musicians. Played at the Proms this summer, this time it sounded very different to me because of the size of the hall perhaps, it sounded even better. This piece is probably my favourite, a hypnotic, slow start with very long bows, I did not want them to end in fact. The piece reminded me of a majestic funeral march, moving, profoundly beautiful. Albinoni would have been impressed by Kennedy’s Adagio! Polish saxophonist of the band, Tomaz Grzegorski, swapped his instrument with a bass clarinet that added nicely to the velvet texture of the piece. Kennedy’s voice whispered at the end “we will never know”, leaving the public thinking, what is it that we will never know: whether there are really hills on Saturn, whether there is life after death or where is the great music coming from?
When the break came, the audience at Shepherd’s
Bush Empire was reluctant to leave the hall, and Kennedy jokingly suggested the
spectators go and get a drink and chill out. A lady sitting close
to me started chatting, and said she preferred Kennedy playing classical music,
as she could enjoy more the outstanding quality of his violin playing. “Why is
he playing jazz, anyway?”, she said. This was a very unexpected question, that
would have required a lot of thinking in other circumstances for my slowing
mind. But I jumped on the occasion and said, "Because he is free in his own
music, he does not have to obey to any boundaries or scripts, he does not have
to follow any composer or critics, here his music can fly as a free spirit” The
old lady didn’t continue, she just nodded with a little smile on her wrinkled
and kind face.
All pieces in the second half of the concert were
from the first CD of A Very Nice Album and they were all little gems of
modern composition. A piece called ‘Donovan’ dedicated to the Scottish folk
musician, had a very memorable melody, that filled the hall with the sounds of
electric violin straight away. In this composition again the pianist Piotr
Wylezol played a remarquable solo, which was one of the highlights of the
evening. The swinging tune of 'Donovan' came back in other pieces as well, quite
unexpectedly.
At this point of the concert, I thought that I had most definitely heard all my favourite pieces of the album, when Kennedy presented his next piece, ‘Invaders’ dedicated to the recent US led wars. 'Invaders ' had an amazing Oriental tune, full of eastern promise, it reminded me of the energy of the Danse of Swords of Khatchaturian. No wonder that Khatchaturian’s masterpiece has been also played on electric violin in recent years by Vanessa Mae. While listening you could imagine dancers in an Arabian hot night somewhere not far from the hanging gardens of Babylon (now destroyed gardens, hélas). The electric violin was getting faster and faster, and I was hoping that the bow would not break in this rollercoaster of spiralling tune. The piece was a true musical and emotional invasion, that carried the audience faraway. By the end of the piece half of the hair on the bow was gone. Kennedy gave all that he could to the joy of his public.
Tomasz, saxophone and bass clarinet..........
(Courtesy Jeff)
Well, I thought, now for sure the best part was
definitely over, when Kennedy asked the audience whether there were meat-eaters
among them, and dedicated the last piece to them in the ‘Carnivore of the
Animals’ (whether he had been inspired by Saint-Saens here, he did not say).
The opening solo of the electric violin was sublime, I thought it sounded
better than electric guitar played by Kennedy. I was very thankful that he did
not invite any rock or jazz star to join the concert, so I could listen and
enjoy the electric violin and the beauty of the compositions with no
distractions. Kennedy won over audience’s minds and hearts once
again that evening; regardless of what he plays, he plays it to perfection. The
five member Polish band were very fit for purpose, and Kennedy seemed very
happy to be part of the band. He presented the members several times making
some very funny comments and engaging them with the audience. I thought he was
a very humble and down to earth man, with no sign of snobbery whatsoever. That
simplicity is perhaps an inseparable part of his greatness as classical and modern
violinist. We were incredibly lucky to get handbands to meet
Kennedy after the concert. He was not long to appear and meet his fans in his
Aston Villa shirt. He hugged men, hugged and kissed ladies’ hands very warmly.
There were many young and old friends, students, teen-age violinists, members
of public waiting to see the man: he found time for everyone and took photos
with many of them, and gave his phone number to others. Kennedy is very inspired by great musicians
that he has played or listened to. He is also very inspiring himself. Only one
piece of bad news: my boy wants an electric violin very badly now, that I can’t afford. I
told him I would get him one when he practices as much as Kennedy did at his
age! ‘Mum, forget it, I will do my paper round and I will buy one, the same
make as Kennedy has’. I know he is more realistic than me, my kid! I don’t know
how much he will practice, but I am pretty sure he will have to sell lots of
papers to afford an electric violin. Though I belong to Agnieszka's generation, (around a
decade younger than him), I discovered Poland long before him, yes, Nigelski! I
went to Poland years ago and fell in love with the country. There is something
very special about this country, the way they live in families, their pride in their history and culture, the respect they show to women in the society. I
noticed that Kennedy had picked up some of the best Polish manners lost
elsewhere: Polish men kiss ladies’ right hand in everyday life, regardless of
age and background. He kissed lots of hands that evening, I can tell you.
Kennedy seems very happy and is doing a wonderful work promoting all those
superb Polish musicians, who would have not probably had the opportunity to
travel the world and make good living otherwise. I wish he could go to other
countries around Eastern Europe and elsewhere to discover all the wasted talent
that gets no recognition they deserve, but then again, he is only human, not
superhuman after all. For all his critics of the last album I would say,
go and listen to it again, then maybe go to his next concert somewhere, or
just... keep quiet. Kennedy is unique, it is very rare for someone to play at
the same time classical music, jazz, blues or rock on violin at the highest
level. But Kennedy does, so just get on with it! And do you know what? He is
doing a great service to the instrument and to the younger generation. You
can’t wrap the violin in 200 year old music and preserve it forever, it has to live
and evolve like all other instruments have done. Other violinists have
attempted to play modern music on violin, simply Nigel Kennedy does it better
than anyone else, and the public knows it and wants more.
Doing it better than anyone else...........
(Courtesy Jeff)
After the concert, we arrived home at 3 a.m. in the
morning, and I went to work without sleeping. ‘Miss, why do you have a yellow
band on your hand today?’ the kids asked at school. ‘Did you go to hospital,
Miss?’ ‘No, I answered, ' I went to a wonderful concert last night, and this is
my backstage pass’. ‘What was the concert, Miss?, Oh, no, it was classical
music, wasn’t it!’ they asked with worried voices.
’No, it wasn’t classical, in fact, you can go on
the internet and listen to A Very Nice Album, then tell me what you think,
all right?’, I said.
‘Miss, when are you going to take off your
handband?’ they asked. ‘Never!’, I said jokingly.
I sincerely don’t know when I will take it off, as every
time I look at my yellow paper handband, I remember: what a nice album, what a
nice tour, what a nice evening I had on the 23rd of September 2008.
Thanks very much, Nigelski! And.....Dowidenia!
J.Seymour,
Free-lance journalist and teacher
My name is Camille, I’m 14 years old and I live in Neuchâtel in
Switzerland. One day my parents suggested that we should go to see the Nigel Kennedy concert in Gstaad. I already knew a little about him because we have a CD and also a DVD of his (The Four Seasons by Vivaldi.) But that is classical music. I find that he has an original way of interpreting this music. I like it. I wondered how he played jazz. At first I didn’t really want to go to see this concert in Gstaad……….BUT……..once we got there I immediately changed my mind and I wasn’t sorry that we had come to see him ! I’ve been playing violin for 7 years now. I saw that Nigel was playing an electric violin and now I really want to try an electric violin. I found the concert stage too cool ! I had only just arrived in the hall and when I saw the stage I wanted to climb up on it and try out all the instruments............
CAMILLE'S EXPERIENCE IN GSTAAD, SWITZERLAND
Some of the instruments...............and the players !
(Courtesy d.wiadomosci24.pl)
There were five of them, drums, a piano, a saxophone, a contrabass and Nigel Kennedy himself with his electric violin. The music was super ! I felt like dancing with my 13-year-old sister. I find that Nigel Kennedy plays very well. And, what’s more, he’s funny ! I love his way of playing. Later on, I would like to work with music. I wouldlike to have a music studio and then one day if I could go to one of Nigel Kennedy’s recording sessions, that would be super !
Nigel playing well................and being funny !
(Courtesy d.wiadomosci24.pl)
I really experienced a lot of pleasure from seeing this concert.
(My thanks to Camille Monnon and to her parents for kindly giving me permission to publish her piece.)
EVAN'S EXPERIENCE AT PROM 2 IN LONDON: JULY 19th, 2008
Anybody who was dismissing Kennedy for his shenanigans wasn't really listening. Nigel Kennedy was the most talented and charismatic violinist to come out of
And so, at least for this time, Kennedy returned to us in a concert that simply oozed with promise. He would be reunited with his old concerto partner, the venerable Vernon Handley, who would get an opportunity to evangelize for his beloved Bax and Finzi to a crossover audience, most of whom had probably never even heard of either composer. But for whatever reason, Tod Handley had to cancel [Editor: it was because of illness ] and the concert fell into the lap of ………. Paul Daniel (50, English)
………………..I found myself getting more worried by the minute that Kennedy's return would not live up to what it promised. I need not have been concerned. A somnolent audience sprang to life when Kennedy emerged and applauded him for a full forty seconds. Kennedy then spent the next ninety seconds bantering with the audience, in part because the music librarian seemed to forget to put Paul Daniel's score on the rostrum. But one had the sense that Kennedy would have insisted on the same repartee even if the score was there.
Kennedy has made two wonderful recordings of this work, which he probably knows more intimately than any violinist living or dead save one: his teacher Yehudi Menuhin, who recorded the work with Elgar himself conducting when he was only 16 years old. Every time he returns to it, the involvement seems even deeper. As his interpretation matures, it grows ever more manic in the extremes in its emotions. His playing of the Elgar is every bit as emotionally stark as it was in 1985, but the intensity with which he communicates it gets ever hotter as the tempos get more variable………. Paul Daniel was with him every step of the way and even provided a few deft touches of his own in the orchestral solos. Part of the reason I like Kennedy so much is for his unique interpretations of classical music, which tends to be a bit paradoxical because there is supposed to be a “right” and “wrong” in classical music, one way that everyone strives to perform and record. He ignores this tradition completely and makes the music his own creation, leaving his mark with every note. He added accents and swells, put in exuberant vibrato, cut notes off a hair early, and sprinkled little hesitations all around. It’s the same black notes and scribbles everyone else plays but he does his decorations and techniques slightly – but not too subtly – differently so you know it was stylistically intentional. (At this concert, though, I am pretty sure there were times when he improvised in his own harmonies and may even have written ahead of time extra cadenza accompaniment for the orchestra. I swear that was not in the recordings. Can he be playing the same music?) For him, music is fun. When the melody was in the next bar, he might stop for a half-second and put on this mischievous little boy face – the one you wear when you should be getting in trouble for something but know you are going to get away with it – before proceeding. If you are familiar with the song, you will hear the notes going in your head, but the orchestra is silent as if the record player slipped and you are left naked with your mental shower-singing voice. But even if you didn’t know the piece, you would know that something was up and to listen well because music doesn’t just come to a screeching, semi-four truck halt like that. As I see it, he is essentially making classical music more accessible and for today’s people (especially youngin’s like myself who may be turned off to the stuff, though there were hardly any of us in the audience). It makes sense with all his play in his musical interpretations that he would have a similar personality and it shines through in his gestures. After each piece he shook his fist in the air and rooted for the audience as if we had done all the work. When he played, he gestured and cued with such intimacy it was as if he was with a 100-member quartet. Even without seeing a rehearsal, you could tell that he was like a mentor to the orchestra instead of a dictator. He joked with them (and the audience) so everyone was with high anticipation of what will happen next and he gave lots of enthusiastic thumbs-up. When he walked off the stage while we were applauding, he reached over to unsuspecting orchestra members he passed by to give them knuckle-knocking high fives and would wait until they embarrassingly complied. After the timpanist played his solo opening notes of the second piece, Nigel made a fist and hit his chest to show that the timpanist had just captured his heart. There was something about the principal cellist, too, as he kissed her hand a few times and gave his bouquet to her, too. He did everything he wasn’t supposed to do. Since it was a concerto concert, he wasn’t supposed to conduct the orchestra at the same time, but he schooched around the would-have-been podium area motioning to the sections and managed to play the first violin parts when he would otherwise have been resting. He wasn’t supposed to wear what looked like black silk PJs and combat boots (one pant leg tucked in) with spiked hair, reminiscent of the punk rock 20-something that he certainly is not. There was no microphone setup on stage because he wasn’t supposed to say anything, but he spoke loudly and slowly to the Spanish audience in his British-English, telling jokes about mind reading (”I bet I can pick three people in the audience and tell you all whether they washed their hair today.”–one was bald). He was supposed to play 2 pieces–not 5–but acknowledged to us before a note was played he knew our tickets were expensive so he didn’t want to “cheat” us. With this jolly, cute-old-man personality he is enchanting and 100% contagious. So much so that I would want to start drinking just so I could go out and have a drink with him. He made a performance out of the night that was beyond my artificially suppressed expectations. I really don’t know who else would get away with such [endearingly] silly behavior in the un-silly world of classical music.
Not simply playing the music………recomposing it.
(Courtesy dailymail.co.uk)
……………….. I'm beginning to wonder if this is not the single finest performance of the Elgar Violin Concerto that I have ever heard. Few performers of Elgar's greatest works can make every note of Elgar's frankly long-winded musical phrases count (Solti, Menuhin, Du Pre, maybe Barbirolli...those are all I can think of). You can't simply play Elgar as he is written on the page. So much depends on knowing exactly when to make unwritten interventions into the text and the ability to use Elgar's score as just a blueprint. Elgar himself provided all the proof we need for this approach with his many freewheeling recordings.
And a new re-creative idea seemed to flow from Kennedy's fingertips with every note. He wasn't simply playing the music, he was re-composing it - changing every detail to fit a personal vision of this most personal of Elgar's works. Of course, there were over-the-top moments that didn't sound like Elgar's Elgar. But Elgar's Elgar has to be the performer's Elgar too. Some composers you can simply play as the page is written, but some require a living personality who won't robotically play just the notes.
The reception sounded frenzied almost to the point that they might mob the stage. The audience shouted, stamped, whistled, and applauded deafeningly loud. It was only as such a rendition would have deserved for what may be the greatest performance you will ever hear of what might be Elgar's greatest work. It is monstrous-feeling to make such a generalization, but part of me thinks we ought to start thinking of Nigel Kennedy as having been put upon this earth to play the Elgar Violin Concerto the same way we think of Jackie Du Pre of having been born to play the Cello Concerto………..the only other soloist who could play Elgar with an intensity that can match Kennedy's.
(Reprinted with his permission from Evan's blog. Many thanks, Evan ! To visit his blog, CLICK HERE.)
I’ve been running into problems
with having too high of expectations for events, so I was trying really hard to not get too excited about the Nigel Kennedy (my favorite violinist) concert – especially after the hassle I had to go through to get the tickets (let’s just say they were supposedly sold out before I knew they were even on sale and when I frantically tried to get a ticket, I was turned away for not having a Spanish credit card – the only means of paying). Plus, the ticket was quite expensive and for nearly a fraction of the price I have seen some excellent concerts abroad, so I was feeling a bit of buyer’s remorse. But – thank goodness – I was not let down. I usually go to a concert for the acoustics, so I come with a book or blank paper to write because the live atmosphere is so stimulating. It might seem weird or even offensive to the players, but I can say that my old viola teacher (who plays for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra) told me that musicians consider it a complement when people fall asleep at their concerts – so I can’t be that bad. Though I was armed with my Spanish textbook, it stayed tucked away in my bag because tonight there was something to see.
The hall itself was interestingly designed with these pop-out risers on the stage and 360-seating. I took advantage of the unique opportunity and sat by the organ in one of the sections on the backwall behind the orchestra. Though it meant I got the back of his head for much of the time, I did get a good view of the orchestra’s open, strappy backs (including a giant shoulder/back tattoo of a second violinist) that in all its unconservative-ness would only be acceptable in
Leaving his mark with every note...
(Courtesy enrique del pozo......gracias !)
But how can someone who doesn’t play this canonized way in such a strict field be so revered, you ask ? It's all in the personality, that's how.
Doing everything he wasn't supposed to....
(Courtesy enrico del pozo......muchas gracias !)
It was outside the programmed pieces that the “real” music came, though. Conducted like a Jam Session complete with the yelling out of numbers and wandering around the audience and entire stage, he played the gypsy piece Czardas and “the only song written by the famous composer James Marshall Hendrix–it was for the better” Purple Haze for encore pieces. Keeping in line with his humor, he played a romantic little duet with the harpsichordist, had a duel with the concert master while both were playing nearly-screeching high harmonic notes, and sneaked up on a day-dreaming first violinist to dedicate a few juicy notes to her as she jumped in her chair. Though the clarinetist didn’t speak English and had rests for nearly the entire piece, Kennedy asked him while his hands were up to start the song if he was “going to play–there’s some music on your stand there, right?” The poor guy, realizing he was on the spotlight, gave a confused look and rustled around his music while Kennedy grinned and started the piece. To finish off the show, while still shaking their bows on the last chord the entire orchestra just stood up and started walking off stage – cellos included.
(This delightful piece originally appeared in Alyssa's blog.........CLICK HERE to visit her. My sincere thanks to Alyssa for allowing me to reprint it here.)
