It’s Sunday, July 11th, 2010.
The time is 7:15 pm. Anne and I are in the forecourt of the White Waters Country Hotel and Spa in Llangollen, Wales. We’re dressed for the concert at 7:45 pm in the pavilion at the International Eisteddfod 2010, and we’re waiting for the taxi we ordered to come and pick us up and take us there. There`s only one thing wrong. The taxi isn`t here !
It`s now 7:25 pm. I ask the desk clerk to call the taxi company. The taxi is on its way !
7:35 pm. Still no taxi. Two young men come out of the hotel and get into their car. I contemplate waving a note or two at them and asking them if they will drive us over to the pavilion, but I`m too slow off the mark. They`re gone ! But wait..............yes, here comes a taxi ! We don`t ask if it`s for us. We pile in and I tell the driver to drive as fast as he legally can to the pavilion.(Anne says `Faster !`) We hurtle through Llangollen and then when we get there we have to find Entrance K. We tell each other that Nigel will be late starting, he always is, and I`m walking as fast as I possibly can, and it`s 7:45 pm, and we stumble our way to our seats just as Nigel and the Orchestra of Life and the NK Quintet walk on to the stage ! HA ! If you can`t trust Nigel Kennedy to be late, what in the world can you trust ?
Never mind. We`re here. We exchange grins. `We`re having FUN, Mum !` murmurs Anne. We tell each other this every time something goes wrong on this trip.
On stage, Nigel starts in his usual way by introducing the other musicians. The lady sitting next to me leans over and says, with no provocation whatsoever, `He`s an embarrassment, isn`t he ?` I stare back at her. We are in the most expensive seats and presumably she paid as much for her ticket as we did. `My dear good woman,`I say,`if you think that, why have you paid all this money to come to his concert ? I wouldn`t pay five cents to go somewhere to be embarrassed !` She gives me a nasty look. Ì was just passing a remark,`she says. I`m too polite (or something) to tell her to shut the fuck up then, but she gets the message. She remains quiet for the rest of the concert.
Just as well. Nigel is telling us that we can disregard our programmes, since it`s all changed since they were printed. We arrived too late to get programmes anyway, didn`t we ?
Lizzie, Nigel and Tomasz...........and a glimpse of Krzysztof !
There`s something surreal about giving yourself completely into Nigel`s hands and letting him lead you wherever he wants to take you, while you`re as good as blindfolded with no idea where you`re going next. In the first half, we get to listen to Bach. That much becomes fairly clear. Nigel and the Orchestra and the Quintet play the Violin Concerto in A minor, with which I am quite familiar. But hold on. It seems I’m not as familiar with it as I thought. This isn’t Bach in an ornately decorated chamber in some palatial dwelling or other. We’re outside. Fresh little breezes blowing through tiny green leaves. A delicate trickling of soft spring water. Birds on the wing. I’ve never heard Bach so full of light and air before.
So what’s different ? It must have something to do with the Orchestra of Life, whose playing is so full of soul that they play as one, unified by Nigel’s violin which is at once just one of the instruments and at the same time apart from them, leading them on. They are all so tight that they achieve a kind of melodic wind that blows through the vertical texture of Bach’s harmonics and brings out a horizontal line which, of course, was there all the time. If you want to understand Bach’s harmonics, you need to listen to jazz and this may explain why the addition of the jazz men combines with the playing of the orchestra to produce this delicious sound sensation.
What else ? Nigel plays one movement of the Concerto for Violin and Oboe in D minor with oboist Marius Pedzialek. He plays the third movement from the Concerto for Two Violins with violinist Sonia Schebeck, and he plays some of Bach’s Two-Part Inventions with cellist Beata Urbanek-Kalinowska. Before they play Invention #14, he tells us that this is known as The Hard One or The Impossible One. They do play it, though, and Nigel rechristens it The Very Manageable Easy One. The audience is enthralled. As well we might be. We applaud loud and long. I glance sideways at my disgruntled neighbour. She has put on a pair of gloves. Why ? To successfully muffle what meagre applause she does offer ? I find I’m beginning to feel somewhat sorry for her. I want to tell her that for whatever crime she committed, she’s now served her sentence and she can go home now. But that won’t do, will it ?
Come on, I say to Anne, let’s go backstage.
Backstage, everybody’s watching the football.
I manage to pry Piotr loose from it so that he can sign my copy of his CD `Children`s Episodes.` I tell him that one day, his signature will be a very valuable one to have. He looks abashed, but I`m sure I`m right about that. Just wait and see.
Totally in his hands..........no better place to be !
The second half, of course, is Duke Ellington. I grew up listening to Duke Ellington. I can still sing songs like `Take the A train` and ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing’ and ‘I’m Beginning to See the Light’ word and note perfect, and if you want me to, I will ! (What`s that ? No, I didn`t think you did !)
Strings instead of brass in the Ellington numbers give us a new perspective on these beautiful songs from my young adulthood. ‘In a Jam,’ ‘In a Sentimental Mood,’ ‘Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue’.....................all played with an improvisatory counterpoint that brings out depths in Ellington that we always knew were there, but couldn’t quite articulate. The lovely spiritual ‘Come Sunday’ is still haunting me. Before playing ‘Cotton Tail,’ Nigel tells us that there is a story that goes with it, but it didn’t go down very well at Henley, so he won’t bother us with it. The one disappointment of the evening ! It is almost incredible the range of sounds Nigel can get out of that violin. Does he have a nickname for it ? I must ask him next time.
The jazz men take solos, but so also does the oboist Marius Pedzialek. There is no end to the delights on offer tonight !
We end with encores and standing ovations.
I didn’t know that Bach could sound like this.
I didn’t know that Ellington could sound like this.
It’s been all soul all evening. And now I do feel sorry for my disgruntled neighbour. She couldn't open her heart or her legs or whatever wide enough. And the music couldn't get in and she missed the entire concert.
Anne and I head backstage again for the after party.
When we leave some time later, Nigel is dancing with just about every young woman in his orchestra !
Back at the hotel, I’m grinning like an idiot. “We’re having FUN, Anne,’ I say. She grins back.
And this time we both mean it !
Elsie and Anne having fun !
Nigel Kennedy (vln), Piotr Wylezol (pno/org), Adam Kowalewski (bs), Krzysztof 'Boom Boom' Dziedzic (dms), Tomasz Grzegorski (ten/sop/bs clt). + 2 Violins & 1 cello.
Anna Maria Jopek (vcl), Marek Naplorkowski (gtr), Robert Kubiszyn (bs/gtr) Piotr Nazaruk (cither, flutes, reeds, fisharmonium, backing vcls).
If they asked me I could write a book
but it would almost be as long as the concert which may still be ongoing.
I've never been to a gig quite like this - there were times when I thought that this was the best gig I'd ever been to and there were times when I thought it wasn't.
The truth is it went on too long.
Anna Maria Jopek set the ball rolling. She looked sexy and svelte in a figure hugging gown as she soared and whispered alluringly through what I presume was the Great Polish Songbook. It was a cross genre performance made possible by her amazing vocal range. It didn't matter that we didn't know what she was singing about - think Italian Opera or Vocalese - the voice was her instrument. A good set with some impressive guitar work by Marek.
During the interval I renewed acquaintance with Ron Simpson, the editor of Jazz Rag, drank a glass of rosé, and chatted on jazz things in general until the bell tolled. We drank deep and hurried back to our seats.
We needn't have.
A team of back stage technicians were at work on the drum kit amplification beavering away like BP technicians in the Gulf of Mexico. The slow hand-claps began from the Polish sector - it may have been stage managed as suddenly everything was Jake.
One crazy violin player.....
(Courtesy picture-alliance)
Well, not quite. Nigel introduced the band by name. No John Smiths here. Read the names at the top and you can imagine how long that took! Still, eventually we got going and DID WE GET FUCKIN' GOING! Apologies for the F word but Nigel K seems to like it so when in Gateshead...
This was simply amazing.
Apart from NK, Tomasz blew great tenor and soprano and the piano had moments too. One helluva band, one crazy violin player - what a sound he gets. At times, almost like a viola so sonorous the tone, whilst at others it could have been Clapton! It was worth the wait, I was on Cloud 9+. Nashville meets Killarney meets Jean-Luc Ponty meets Menuhin on Miaow. It was 32. I wanted to stay there forever midst this frenetic, frenzied fiddling but, after a while, it became forever and a day and the magic faded, the riffs became repetitive, the thrill wasn't gone but it was going.
The security men evicting a drunk - or maybe he was a political protester, or a descendent of Vivaldi - from the front row provided a welcome distraction and, after a set that had lasted an hour and a half up until this point, my Metro train home beckoned.
I confessed to the girl at the door it had been a tad too long. She agreed then said that there were still another 35 minutes to go.
I don't want to come over too negative as this concert will stay with me for the rest of my life and I really did enjoy it.
But...
[ED: Yes, BUT ! It's an overwhelming experience to go all the way with Nigel, isn't it ?]
Lance writes reviews and previews of jazz gigs mainly in north east England but also further afield.
If you haven’t heard of Nigel Kennedy
it is possible that you have been hiding under a rock.
Kennedy, an English violinist, has spent the past few decades embracing classical and jazz music and finding different ways to blend these two genres.
And if being a brilliant violinist wasn’t enough, he’s recently managed to put together his very own orchestra of young musicians, who are as comfortable playing jazz music as they are playing classical.
The Orchestra of Life debuted on the 29th of May to a packed audience at the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre in London.
The antics of Nigel Kennedy
The man himself was jovial, humourous and played the violin with ease.
Kennedy played with the audience, spoke in Polish and reminisced about the difficulties of his days as a busker and a student.
His orchestra, which spent the first part of the evening playing some of Bach’s most famous pieces like his Violin Concerto in E Major, didn’t break a sweat.
Perfectly named, The Orchestra of Life, kept up with Kennedy’s sweeping playful gestures as he kissed them, joked about their nicknames to the audience, and praised them consistently. It became almost impossible not to want to be a part of their happy little family.
Yet, there were times when it seemed as if the orchestra’s ability to play some of Bach’s most complex pieces were the only reason the well-known compositions were chosen. Nigel’s rendition of Bach’s works did not reverberate through the audience, chilling the blood.
It did, however, place The Orchestra of Life, as a serious contender in the world of classical music.
Fitting like a well-oiled glove.....
(Courtesy guardian.co.uk)
The dessert was better than the meal
Before the classical segment was over, the orchestra performed one of Kennedy’s composed works entitled ‘Hills of Saturn K’. A mixture of jazz and classical music combined, its Birtwistlian influences were the perfect segue into the works of Duke Ellington. And this more than anything else is where Nigel Kennedy’s Orchestra of Life’s talents really lay.
The improvisational nature of jazz fits Kennedy like a well-oiled glove. If he seemed at ease with Bach’s pieces, Ellington’s works were surely at home in the strings, horns, percussion and ivory keys that elegantly payed homage to them on stage.
Tomasz Grzegorski pushed notes of a clarinet in a way that could only be described as a close encounter of the third kind. It was a communication where the rest of the orchestra responded with sometimes jungle beat awareness, and other times, with the stillness of a lake at dawn.
The tinkling of the ivories by Piotr Wylezol only added to this presummer night’s dream like a trickling waterfall.
In the hands of this young orchestra, Ellington’s music gained a new vitality. The juxtaposed notes seemed to fly through the air and meet with an unlikely partner.
And when this vibrant, edgy sound wasn’t begging the audience to jump out of their seats to dance, the rich, tones of a Harlem Night club emerged from cellos and violins harmonising on stage.
It was the mix of two genres that seized this night. It was, as Simon Cowell is so fond of saying, making something old current and new.
Some members of the orchestra were as skilled as Kennedy and made the performance extraordinary. Sonja Schebeck’s duet with Kennedy was moving and flawless. Marimba and vibraphone player Orphy Robinson was on fire. And violinist Lizzie Ball seemed born with a violin in her hand.
If this Southbank Centre debut is evidence of what’s in store from the Orchestra of Life, then they are definitely here to stay.
ROSIE'S EXPERIENCE IN WROCLAW, DECEMBER 3rd, 2009
Imagine a moment you realize that what you see, what you hear, what you feel is ABSOLUTE. That NOTHING ever can be better than this. I felt that the moment my little daughter started clapping her tiny hands and jumping in my lap. She was smiling. She was intrigued. She was in her toddler heaven, the state of mind in which children know they are safe and the world is good and beautiful. And Nigel with Kroke were on the stage. And that little girl spent 2 hours standing in my lap, listening to music she has already known and it filled her little body and mind like a bliss.
Nigel Kennedy: brilliant. MSO: Bunch of reanimated zombies.
On Saturday night Hubs and I saw Nigel Kennedy in concert with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Great programme - Bach and Duke Ellington. A jazz band integrated very well into a truncated orchestra and both the classical and the jazz works were performed in characteristically virtuosic style.
There's just one problem.
The MSO (and possibly the Melbourne music scene as a whole, not just the classical half) are uptight ponces who take themselves far too seriously and come across as having the wit, charm, and personality of a granite boulder.
Perhaps I am spoilt; a child of the eighties and a teen of the nineties, I'm used to the pop stars who looked like they could dance, sounded like they could sing, and managed to dress themselves without stylists. They may have even managed some faux-acting every once in a while.
There is something irresistible about a man who can clumsily and with great delight soul punch the fist of a cellist when a duet goes well. Who dares to play concerto movements out of the accepted order (yes, I'm sure they did that in Bach's day too!) and nearly falls over a cello on his way to check the time signature of a jazz composition. There's a lot to be said for people who PLAY the music rather than dissect it.
After the concert, I collided with another Suzuki teacher; also a violinist, she confessed that she'd had something of a crush on Nigel at the tender age of seventeen. Given he's thirty years older than me, I don't know about the crush factor, but he did keep me playing through my teenage years.
Actually, my beloved uncle (not a muso in any shape or form) stumbled across Kennedy's genius and bought eight-year-old me a CD.
A few years later he bought me a pair of cherry Doc Martens for Christmas (Nigel having a serious fetish for this footwear). He'd agonised over them so much and been so happy with the purchase for his twelve-year-old niece that his girlfriend bought him a pair too. Together we kicked the ponciness out of classical violin in our matching anti-establishment cherry Docs, defiantly unlaced and scuffed to all get out. Ah...Docs...
So, the concert ? Wonderful. Brilliant. My mother-in-law is damned fantastic. Possibly better, however, than the gift of the concert was the reminder that we are all human. We are all here for only so long, and what we leave behind will or will not resonate. I think I'll try to stay focused on the music. The theory, the science... well, that's all well and good, but will my students say "Hey, she really taught me how to accent the mathematical progression of sequencing in Bach!"? Hm.
It's not unimportant, but it's not everything. And in the words of the man himself on Saturday night: "After twenty years ANYONE can play the Bach [A minor concerto] technically, it's REALLY knowing it that's the thing."
Gee. You think?
NB: Being the slave of a "serious" art form does not mean you are permanently in thrall to it. It will just make you incredibly boring, possibly devoid of the emotional depth and nuance that's necessary to play with conviction.
Possibly this is my nail in the coffin of our 'cultural' scene; it's perpetrators don't look like they're having fun and I don't really feel like joining them.
Big day for Chelsea !
I thought I would like to share with fans
I have a six year old boy Sean who is a violin student and a huge fan of Nigel ... so the moment we got to know Nigel is heading down under I booked tickets for us to go and see him ... I was very sick last year and my illness and absence as a mum left deep scars on my sons ... so organizing a one on one trip with my middle son was a wonderful idea as well as very special, knowing we are going to share something we love, just the two of us together.
We took a plane on Monday morning and spent a nice time together, not walking too much so we did not get too tired :D ! About 30 min. before the beginning of the concert Sean gobbled up a pizza, drank a glass of soda and we headed off to the Opera House ....
We were counting minutes ... Sean fidgeted in his seat .. when is he going to come, when is he going to come out? till he heard this sort of footy kind of call from the backstage and finally heard the announcement ...
And there he was .... the cool dude .... look at his hair, mum .. it is really spiky ... and he has a violin (hee hee, imagine .... like, Nigel really has a violin ! )
Sean..........a violinist in the making......
The concert started with beautiful piece of Bach ... well, that is what I thought about the music ... Sean's perception about this first piece was a little different.. I got to realize it after few minutes into the music when after the second slow down part that resembled an ending, he whispered ... when is it going to finish? .. haha ... but when Nigel performed another crescendo Sean just sighed and gave in... he managed to find stillness and gave himself to the beauty of the music, the same way he has to face challenging moments during his violin learning ... then at the very moment Nigel swapped violins and performed his first Jazz piece ... Sean came alive ..
I watched my gorgeous son dancing in his seat ... waving his arms and clapping way out loud like at a soccer match ... he managed to sit through the 3 hours of performance with only three little comments on length ... I was really proud of him ...
He wondered about a young girl from the audience seat Nigel called to join him on the stage . She played a few Bartok pieces so beautifully together with Nigel .. and I was grateful for the moment as for Sean who is truly just a little boy practicing hard his twinkles and song of the winds ... to see that if he will do his practice and will love and trust the process of learning a musical instrument, facing the hard bits ... that when he is grown up he will be able to play real big music like the young girl did .... and definitely much more difficult music than he knows to play right now ...
When the concert finished we left quietly into the darkness of the night ... the ultimate beauty of the music Nigel shared with us filled our hearts .. our bodies and us as such ... I felt like crying ... it was like saying goodbye to a place long time known and long time loved ... we took a stroll along the wharf and bought ice cream at the corner shop ... there was nothing that needed to be said ... so we enjoyed ourselves just the way we were in that very moment ... quiet mellow moment ...
Jazz was the best .. Sean told me later, but I know that deep in his heart a seed of love of music as such was planted ...
and I was very grateful he, as well as me, could experience the love of music personalized in Nigel ... in Sean's words, really real and big ... with little houses when his fingers touch the strings ...
The next day I got to read a lovely message from our violin teacher and my friend that she left under one of our images from the day ... she said that Sean's friend and schoolmate William, who is also learning violin, decided he is Nigel .. because he got so much inspired by Sean's Nigel trip to Sydney ...
At that moment, I realized how big and special and very important "everything" that Nigel is IS ...
and I felt a deep gratitude.
