Nigel Kennedy

Nigel Kennedy (born 28 December 1956) is a British-born violinist and violist. He made his early career in the classical field, and he has performed and recorded most of the major violin concerti. He later included jazz, klezmer, and other genres in his repertoire.

Nigel Kennedy's grandfather was Lauri Kennedy, a British-born musician and principal cellist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, who played with Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Arthur Rubinstein, and others. His grandmother was Dorothy Kennedy, a pianist, who accompanied John McCormack and taught Enrico Caruso's children. Lauri and Dorothy settled in Australia, where their son, the cellist John Kennedy, was born. At the age of 24, John moved to England and joined the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, later becoming the principal cellist of Sir Thomas Beecham's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. While in England, John developed a relationship with an English pianist, Scylla Stoner, with whom he eventually toured in 1952 as part of the Llewellyn-Kennedy Piano Trio (with the violinist Ernest Llewellyn; Stoner was billed as "Scylla Kennedy" although she and John never married). However, John ultimately left Stoner and returned to Australia, unaware she was pregnant by him. John remained unaware of the existence of his son, Nigel Kennedy, until they met for the first time when Nigel was 11. Nigel Kennedy has about 30 close relatives in Australia, whom he visits whenever he tours there.

Nigel Kennedy was born in Brighton, East Sussex. A boy prodigy, as a 10-year-old he would pick out Fats Waller tunes on the piano after hearing his stepfather's jazz records. He was a pupil at the Yehudi Menuhin School of Music, and later studied at the Juilliard School in New York with Dorothy DeLay.

At the age of 16, Kennedy was invited by Stéphane Grappelli to appear with him at New York's Carnegie Hall, under the threat from his teachers at the Juilliard that it would ruin his classical career. He made his recording debut in 1984 with Elgar's Violin Concerto. Kennedy's recording of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons with the English Chamber Orchestra in 1989 sold over 2 million copies and earned a place as one of the best-selling classical works ever. The album remained top of the UK classical charts for over a year with sales equivalent to one copy sold every 30 seconds.

He gave numerous performances for The Prince's Trust, the Royal Variety Performance and private performances at St. James's Palace and Buckingham Palace. He released his biography Always Playing in 1991. He then took the controversial and highly publicised decision to withdraw completely from public performance, at which point he made the album Music In Color with Stephen Duffy. He made a triumphant return to the international concert platform to critical acclaim five years later. In 1997, Kennedy received an award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music at the BRIT Awards, and in 2001 received the 'Male Artist of the Year' award.

Kennedy recorded a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" for the 1993 album Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix. In 1999 Sony Classical released The Kennedy Experience, which featured improvisational recordings of Hendrix compositions. According to a BBC interview with Kennedy, the violinist stated that the recording is "an album of music inspired by Jimi Hendrix. It is an extended instrumental work in six movements, each movement a classical interpretation of a Hendrix song". On the recording, Kennedy is accompanied by seven other musicians, and the lineup includes two cellos, an oboe, two guitars, a Dobro, flute, and double bass. With cellist Lynn Harrell, he has recorded an album of duets.

In 2000, he has recorded Riders on the Storm: The Doors Concerto (with Jaz Coleman), a violin based orchestral version of many Doors songs, including "Strange Days", "LA Woman", "The End", and "Riders On The Storm". And, on 27 November, Kennedy joined rock group The Who at the Royal Albert Hall to play the violin solo on the song "Baba O'Riley", released three years later on the album Live at the Royal Albert Hall. Kennedy has played on several tracks - notably "Experiment IV"- by British singer/songwriter Kate Bush, who was a guest on Kennedy's episode of This Is Your Life. He was featured on two of Sarah Brightman's songs for her 2003 album Harem.

He has been exploring Klezmer music with the Polish jazz band Kroke. The band consists of musicians "who have been knocking around with Kennedy for five years. ... [Kennedy explains], 'I met them all separately at jam sessions in the jazz club near where I live in Cracow, ... I thought: that’s the drummer I want, that’s the bass player, and so on. They’ve all got their own projects.'"

In late 2005, Kennedy went to New York to record his first album for the jazz label Blue Note Sessions. Other musicians on the album were Ron Carter on double bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums; and saxophonist Joe Lovano. Kennedy has since stated that "from now on, at least 50 per cent of my endeavour is going to be in the jazz field".

Kennedy appointed a new manager, Terri Robson, and returned to the Proms after an absence of 21 years, performing Elgar's Violin Concerto and a late-night Prom with the Nigel Kennedy Quintet.

He also plays the viola, and has recorded Sir William Walton's Viola Concerto.

In 1991, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Letters) by the University of Bath.

Kennedy's persona is seen by some as abrasive and limiting to his career, citing as an example his use of a 'Mockney' accent instead of the Received Pronunciation he had when he was interviewed as a child in 1964 on the BBC's Town and Around.

Kennedy was attacked for his approach to classical music by John Drummond in 1991, who called him "a Liberace for the Nineties" and criticised his "ludicrous clothes and grotesque, self-invented accent."

Until 2006 he had expressed his intention of not appearing on the classical London concert scene with a London orchestra, seen by some as arrogance and stated by Kennedy in terms of frustrated perfectionism: "It all comes down to the amount of rehearsal you get, or don't get, in this country. I insist on three or four sessions prior to a concert, and orchestral administrators won't accommodate that. If I didn't care about getting it right I could do three concerts in the same amount of time and earn three times the money. But you can't do something properly in less time than it takes."

Kennedy expresses a preference for the immediate appeal of live performance, and often records entire works or movements in single 'takes' to preserve this sense in his recordings. He also introduces improvisatory elements in his performances, as in his Jimi Hendrix-inspired cadenza to the Beethoven Violin Concerto and his jazz and fusion recordings.

When not touring, Kennedy divides his time between residences in Malvern, Worcestershire (where his former girlfriend and son Sark live); and London and Kraków where he lives with his Polish second wife, Agnieszka.

In the late 1980s, Kennedy was romantically involved with singer/guitarist Brix Smith.

Kennedy is a well-known Aston Villa F.C. supporter. At Przystanek Woodstock 2010, he had his orchestra wear Aston Villa shirts, while directing the crowd in the team's chants. Whilst living and recording in Poland he also took an active interest in KS Cracovia, in whose 100th anniversary club replica kit he appeared.

On 24 October 2006, Kennedy broke his arm in a cycling accident, confirmed in an interview on BBC Radio 3 on 20 April 2007.

Kennedy has acknowledged regularly smoking cannabis in order to aid his creativity.

Kennedy is a socialist. He supported David Davis's campaign when he quit his shadow home secretary post to force a by election in protest over proposals to allow terrorist suspects to be locked up for 42 days without charge.

The musician is a vocal opponent of Israel's policies in the West Bank, and, in the summer of 2007, he told a Ha'aretz reporter:

"I was shocked to see these walls, it's a new apartheid, barbaric behaviour: How can you impose such a collective punishment and separate people? After all, we are all living on the same planet. It seems to me the world should have already learned from what happened in South Africa. And a country that hasn't learned should be boycotted, so that's why I don't perform in your country."