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Media Clips
Here you can read articles, interviews and so on from the media which are available online, as well as some which are not …………in those cases, I have asked permission from the original publisher to reprint and it has been granted. If you read something online or in a newspaper or magazine or hear something you think would interest fellow fans, give me a shout and I'll contact the proper authorities for permission to feature it here. My thanks to everyone !
EMILY DENNIS : NIGEL KENNEDY AT THE LATITUDE FESTIVAL, JULY 15th, 2010
World renowned violin virtuoso Nigel Kennedy
wowed the crowd at Latitude Festival last night as he took to the stage to deliver a spell-binding performance.
A large crowd gathered to watch the multi-award winning performer, who led a tribute to jazz icon Duke Ellington, whose career spanned more than 50 years.
Nigel salutes Beata............a jewel of a duo !
(Courtesy bbc.co.uk)
The excitement was palpable before Kennedy even appeared as the crowd moved towards the festival's lake stage.
Festival creator Melvin Benn welcomed Kennedy on stage calling him “The most extraordinary violinist anybody has ever come across”..................
(This review first appeared in the Lowestoft Journal. To read the rest of it, simply click HERE.)
Emily Dennis writes regularly for the Lowestoft Journal and other journals.
EMRYS BAIRD : PIOTR WYLEZOL AT THE POLISH WEEKEND, MAY 28th, 2010
Pianist, Piotr Wylezol, a virtuoso and composer
with a highly developed ensemble sense took to the stage at the Purcell Room with steely eyed determination and a handful of eloquent compositions that show him to be eminently capable of spearheading the new Polish jazz vanguard that's exploding around Europe.
Pianist, virtuoso, composer.........and cute with it !
(Courtesy akafoe.de)
The sophisticated level and the broad palette Piotr conjures up is truly remarkable. No wonder he's an essential part and quite possibly the core of The Nigel Kennedy Quintet..................
Singer/guitarist/music journalist Emrys Baird fronts his own original soul band Soul Immigrants, which he formed with Nitin Sawhney in the mid 90's. Check them out on YouTube.
ADAM SWEETING: NIGEL KENNEDY'S POLISH ADVENTURE, JUNE 14th, 2010
Brilliant though it was to be shooting an Imagine film for BBC One
we did experience the occasional tremor of foreboding about making a programme with Nigel Kennedy. We (that's me and director Frank Hanly) had a bit of previous with Nigel - I'd done several print interviews with him, and we'd shot a couple of short films with him for EMI.
The last one was at Rockfield studios in Monmouth for his recent jazz album, Shhh! We'd bowled up out of the pouring rain on a black November night to be greeted like long-lost family members, as Nige plied us with wine and insisted that we join him, his wife Agnieszka and various studio collaborators for one of Rockfield's colossal home-cooked dinners. Great, we thought, this is going to be easy.
This is going to be easy.....
(Courtesy gazetakrakowska.pl)
This is going to be easy.....
(Courtesy gazetakrakowska.pl)
Then the following day Nige abruptly decided that he wanted to spend the day with his son Sark instead of being interviewed by us, so we spent a monsoon-like Sunday skulking around coffee shops in Gloucester. With seigneurial sang froid, Kennedy had decreed that we couldn't even shoot a few exterior shots of Rockfield to keep ourselves amused. We finally did our interview at 11 p.m. How we laughed when we looked back on it............
(To read the rest of this very worthwhile article, just click HERE.)
MAREK DUSZA: NIGEL IN ZAKOPANE, MAY 14th, 2010
Nigel Kennedy's concert Chopin Super Group
opened the second part of the Spring Jazz Festival in Zakopane 2010. Thanks to the British violinist who loves jazz and Poland, Zakopane joins to the main festival in Poland.
The events of this weekend are the prologue to the presentation of our music in London, as part of their Polish Year in about two weeks. The premiere presentation of Nigel Kennedy’s Chopin program acted like a magnet. The audience filled the Falcon Cinema hall in Zakopane and responded enthusiastically to the project.
Nigel Kennedy has invited the cooperation of several musicians, including several outstanding soloists. Janusz Olejniczak, who Kennedy considers as the greatest interpreter of Chopin in the world, was at the piano. Olejniczak opened the concert by playing solo the classical interpretation of the first piece. Then followed revolution with jazz soloists: Robert Majewski, trumpet, and saxophonist Tomasz Grzegorski. Also Sonja Schebek played solo violin like a jazz leader, with dynamic strokes and electrically processed sound.
In the next composition the scales tipped toward the classics, when Kennedy turned to the acoustic electric instrument and played a duet with Janusz Olejniczak. It turned out that Chopin's music is great as a jazz ballad with its catchy melodic line and a daring improviser, and Kennedy used the famous theme to improvise far and wide from the theme.
When the atmosphere in the room had become very romantic and nostalgic, Kennedy quickened the pace and changed the sound of the violin to a more raw, rough one and in a moment became a classic jazzman. His solo provoked a storm of applause.
The Chopin Super Group
(Courtesy rp.pl)
Moments later, Kennedy invited on stage Anna Maria Jopek. She brought home to the audience that Chopin's music comes straight from the heart, and therefore just as easily reaches the hearts of sensitive listeners. She sang with violin and piano.. Another guest of the evening was an excellent violinist, vocalist and band leader Sebastian Karpiel-Bulecka, from the group Zakopower. With his characteristic expressive singing and playing the violin he introduced a striling Highlander motif. Another solo instrument with a combination of keyboard was played by the saxophonist Matthew Pospiech.
An impressive polonaise for the final concert sparked enthusiasm. We have never before heard such a dynamic song performed by Nigel Kennedy. His orchestra fell into a trance-like beat, and he performed his solo at breakneck speed, jumping and waving to highlight the culminating moment of the concert. Announcing that the violinist would present a "slightly different view" on the music of Chopin was very diplomatic. This is Chopin as you have never heard him !
It was not the end point of the Friday evening. The hotel Belvedere quartet gave a sensational performance by guitarist Jarek Smietana. It could not be otherwise, when Wojciech Karolak sits at the Hammond organ, and drummer Adam Czerwinski and bassist Yaron Stavi emphasize the rhythm. The guitarist played his old and new songs, but received the biggest applause for the compositions of Jimi Hendrix as played by Smietana on his latest album, "Psychedelic.”
(This review was written by Marek Dusza and first appeared in his blog.To read it in the original Polish, click HERE. I haven't been able to contact Marek, so if you know him please ask him to send me an email !)
