‘One reason for not touring here more is a certain snootiness in some quarters’

Punky hair, mockney accent, airing controversial views and playing the violin like an angel. Nigel Kennedy talks to Sheena Hastings.

NIGEL Kennedy says he might not know much about other things, but when it comes to music he has earned his right to air opinions. And air them he does, in spades. Not one to slowly crank up to speed, he sets off at a cracking pace with views on music teachers, conductors, those who resent him because he “puts bums on seats and doesn’t wear the right clothes”, the respective virtues of Bach and Vivaldi and, oh yes, the charms of Colombian pop princess Shakira. Forget Bach or Brahms – it’s Shakira that would most comfort the violin virtuoso if he were to find himself alone on that mythical desert island.

This is absolutely not the kind of conversation you could ever imagine having with Lang Lang or Itzhak Perlman. Nor would you ever see them on a concert stage wearing the shirt of their beloved football team (Kennedy’s is Aston Villa), their hair in a style that has been likened to a gardening accident, or throwing on clothes which some might think have been pulled out of dressing-up box in the dark.

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Nigel Kennedy’s detractors say the rakish, punky facade and estuary English are simply about drawing attention to himself rather than the music, as is the way he plays with his own name; he would reply, most probably, that interesting people in music should not mean dressing as though you are 200 years old, and actually his music is all about collaboration.

Kennedy has at times had a fractious relationship with elements of the classical music scene in the UK. Just turned 55, he’s found it easier for the last few years to operate from outside this country. He keeps homes in London and Malvern (where his son, Sark, lives with the teenager’s mother) but lives with his Polish second wife Agnieska in Krakow.

He plays with a panoply of gifted Polish musicians, gigs in jazz clubs, plays for three and a half hours every day when not touring. He frequently works in Germany, Japan and beyond, and never plays fewer than 100 concerts in a year. But in recent times his appearances on home soil are like hen’s teeth, except when he delightedly accepts a turn at the Proms, where he is always rapturously received.

In the last couple of years he has played only a handful of concerts in Britain, and his last nationwide tour was a decade ago. But this month he’s back, with 11 dates from Brighton to Edinburgh (stopping at York) with the Orchestra of Life, airing his own new composition, The Four Elements, as well as a new interpretation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – the work which, in 1989, took Nigel Kennedy into the stratosphere with one of the best-selling classical recordings of all time. He remains one of the world’s top-selling names in classical music, even if some of his own compositions haven’t been huge hits.

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“The record label don’t necessarily tell you if something doesn’t do too well... but for me it’s all about learning, exploring, expressing and sharing ideas. I haven’t done the UK properly in so long, although I love playing here,” he says.

“I’ve been very busy in Krakow, developing my own different forms of music and performance, and I get so many invitations to play from countries such as Germany and Japan. One of the reasons for not touring here is that there is a certain snootiness in some quarters which means I don’t get that many invitations. People want you to be one thing only – just a classical violinist –and in Poland and many other countries there is greater acceptance of a musician’s desire to explore other genres.

“You can’t spend your whole life playing what you were doing in 1989 in the same way as you did back then. In other countries people are open to all of the things I am trying to do, instead of coming out with ‘Who does he think he is?’ I don’t say everything I try is 100 per cent successful, but there is an audience out there (outside Britain) that is willing to give it a go and try it.”

Kennedy argues that he would be doing no great service to music fans or to his own art and desire to improve in its practice if he did not relentlessly pursue new ways of using his talent and his omnivorous tastes.

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His desire to diversify started when he was around seven years old. The son of a pianist mother and cellist father, Nigel sat beneath the piano as his mother Scylla Stoner gave lessons and, after a year or two of starting to learn the classical instrument, began to pick out Fats Waller tunes to amuse himself.

A few months after picking up the violin his mum thought he showed talent and took him to audition at the Yehudi Menuhin School. Whether it was a case of the great virtuoso instantly recognising another prodigious talent or simply a certain level of possibility, Menuhin invented a scholarship for young Nigel as his single-parent mother could not afford the fees.

After almost a decade at the school, during which Menuhin and Kennedy became close friends, the teenager went off to complete his tuition at the celebrated Juilliard School in New York.

His first crossing of the Rubicon came when, at 16, he was invited by the jazz violin legend Stephane Grappelli to join him on stage at Carnegie Hall. Kennedy’s tutor said the appearance would end his classical career and he hesitated at first.

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A couple of stiff whiskies stiffened his resolve not to pass up the chance to play in such a setting with one of the greatest violinists of the age. Looking back, he says the tutor was right but he has no regrets.

“There were record label executives in the audience that night who’d offered me a contract to record Mozart, and after the concert they withdrew the offer. But I’ve always felt a great affinity with jazz and with improvisation. I was so lucky that as a student in New York, I could see so many big names for a few dollars in small clubs. Students in London can’t afford the price of seeing the great names that perform at Ronnie Scott’s these days.”

Recently Kennedy has been championing JS Bach and voicing fulsome criticism of the way students are taught to play the German composer’s work.

“In terms of spirituality, melody, architecture and rhythm, he is so much greater than Vivaldi and so much about the music is perfect. He didn’t leave one shoddy piece of work behind him. But too often it is played in a fastidious, self-conscious way. Quite often teachers won’t let children near Bach until they are teenagers, and that is wrong. There are also some lazy teachers around who teach all kids the same works in the same way, as though they are in a factory turning out technically good players but not treating them as unique individuals who can express feelings.

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“Some children are well able to take on Bach’s simpler works when quite young, and they have the imagination, soul and empathy to handle them well. Too many teachers – the Russians and Americans are particular offenders – are so into perfect technique that they sacrifice emotion, dynamism and insight into the music. I listen to old 78s of Pablo Casals and he may hit some wrong notes but he puts 100 times more feeling into the music than musicians whose learning has been all about technique.”

Kennedy has also tweaked the sensitivities of conductors, some of whom he has accused of being egocentrics more interested in money and prestige than developing a musical relationship with an orchestra. He even questioned whether conducting was an art, saying: “Why would you want to stand there waving a stick when you could be playing an instrument?” Whether he has mellowed on the subject is unclear, simply saying now: “The type of conductors who are good at what they do needn’t care what I say...” At any rate, he hasn’t been cast out by the fraternity, and will be back later in the year to play Brahms with the London Philharmonic, cheerfully taking direction from the podium.

In preparation for performance, Kennedy plays for a couple of hours each day, goes for a run, then consumes a pot of tea.

“I like to be nervy, keyed-up, ready to put everything in. I feel I’m improving in tonal control and pacing, and you can keep improving until your 70s or 80s, when co-ordination becomes a problem.

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“At my age, there’s always more you can do to help yourself along, if you make enough effort. It’s always about hard work. And, of course, a lot of passion.”

Nigel Kennedy plays Vivaldi Four Seasons and Nigel Kennedy Four Elements at York Grand Opera House on Saturday, January 14. Tickets 08444 999 999.

A MUSICAL HERITAGE

Born in 1956, in Brighton, Sussex.

His grandfather was the British musician Lauri Kennedy, who became principal cellist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, playing with such names as Fritz Kreisler and Arthur Rubinstein. His wife Dorothy was a pianist, who accompanied John McCormack and taught Enrico Caruso’s children.

They later settled in Australia, where their son John was born. He became a cellist and moved to the UK aged 24, joining the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, then becoming principal cellist of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham.

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John Kennedy began a relationship with the pianist Scylla Stoner. When Kennedy left and returned to Australia, he didn’t know that Stoner was pregnant and remained unaware of his son Nigel’s existence until they met when the boy was 11.

Nigel visits his family in Australia whenever he tours there.

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