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Nigel Kennedy

Vivaldi - The New Four Seasons

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Interview with Nigel Kennedy (violin)
1 Spring: 1 Melodious Incantation  
2 Spring: 2 Transitoire #  
3 Spring: 3 The Goatherd Sleeps With His Trusty Dog Beside Him  
4 Spring: 4 Transitoire ##  
5 Spring: 5 Nymphs And Shepherds Dance  
6 Summer: 6 Destiny  
7 Summer: 7 Transitoire #  
8 Summer: 8 Fear  
9 Summer: 9 Transitoire ##  
10 Summer: 10 His Fears Are Only Too True  
11 Autumn: 11 The Peasant Celebrates The Rich Harvest  
12 Autumn: 12 Transitoire #  
13 Autumn: 13 Pleasure Of Sweetest Slumber  
14 Autumn: 14 Transitoire ##  
15 Autumn: 15 Horns, Guns, And Dogs  
16 Winter: 16 Prolitoire #  
17 Winter: 17 To Shiver, Frozen  
18 Winter: 18 The Rain Outside  
19 Winter: 19 Transitoire #  
20 Winter: 20 Walk On The Ice  
21 Winter: 21 The End  
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In 1989 Nigel Kennedy made his breakthrough recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. In his sleeve notes to that famous release, Kennedy stressed that he had rejected the idea of playing Vivaldi's suite of violin concertos in either the "authentic" fashion, using period instruments, or in the more florid "romantic" style. He explained that his objective was to use "every kind of technique I know" to communicate his feeling for the music to his listeners. He didn't believe that The Four Seasons was confined to any particular point in time, because it "has far more to offer than mere historical interest."

Now, in 2015, Kennedy returns with a completely fresh take on The Four Seasons, but while the music sounds hugely different, his creative attitude is the same. Once again he has set out to prove that The Four Seasons is timeless, and in his opinion there's no reason why Vivaldi's masterpiece shouldn't be opened up to embrace developments in musical instrument technology, or even new musical styles undreamt of in Vivaldi's 18th century world. Any forward-looking composer, Kennedy reasons, would have been delighted to exploit the potential of more expressive or sophisticated instrumentation if it had been available to him.

Kennedy's fans have already had a chance to hear The New Four Seasons in concert, so some of the musical innovations crammed into this new recording will seem familiar. Integral to the Kennedy approach is the drum programming of Massive Attack's Damon Reece, which adds a mesmerizing rhythmic pulse underneath the crisply-articulated playing of Kennedy's Orchestra of Life. This hand-picked ensemble of enthusiastic young musicians, under orchestra leader Lizzie Ball, is an extension of Kennedy's own adventurous philosophy. They're willing to follow Kennedy's imaginative flights wherever they might take him, while always keeping him anchored, somehow, to Vivaldi's original blueprint.

  • Nigel Kennedy returns to Bucharest with Hendrix project / Romania-Insider
    Posted At: October 7, 2023 12:00 AM
    Romania-Insider's Simona Fodor writes…..Violinist Nigel Kennedy is set to perform in Bucharest this December with a program of Jimi Hendrix classics. The concert, titled Nigel Kennedy plays Hendrix – a magical Christmas Haze violin Experience, is scheduled for December 23 at Sala Palatului. Acknowledged as a violin virtuoso, Kennedy studied at the Menuhin School and the Juilliard School of Music in New York...
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  • Nigel Kennedy connects with Llewellyn Hall audience / The Canberra Times
    Posted At: January 28, 2019 12:00 AM

    Nigel Kennedy walked on the Llewellyn Hall stage on Friday January 25 for his recital: 'Bach meets Kennedy Meets Gershwin,' while his ensemble (cello, bass and two guitars) played a tremolo crescendo chord of anticipation. The chord ebbed and dissipated leaving Kennedy, Bach's Sonata for Solo Violin in G minor, and the audience connected in an electric current. Kennedy's reverence for Bach invest...
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  • Nigel Kennedy wows the crowds at BBC's inaugural - Biggest Weekend / The Scotsman
    Posted At: May 29, 2018 12:00 AM

    Summertime, and the livin' is easy. On a glorious, opening day of sunshine for Perth's staging of the BBC's inaugral Biggest Weekend, headliner Nigel Kennedy wowed the crowds with a sumptuous foray into jazz and Gershwin, even taking to the piano for a puckishly swinging interpretation of They Can't Take That Away From Me. Backed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, he delivered a zesty Porgy and Bess...
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  • Classic Brit awards return after five-year absence / The Guardian
    Posted At: March 22, 2018 12:00 AM

    After a five-year absence the Classic Brit awards, originally founded in 2000 in an attempt to create the same buzz for classical music as the Brits have for the pop industry, will return to the Royal Albert Hall this summer. It will be hosted by the musician and television presenter Myleene Klass and the actor Alexander Armstrong. Damned by one critic as "fundamentally tacky", the ceremony with its ...
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  • Nigel Kennedy on his thrilling first night at Ronnie Scott's / theguardian
    Posted At: February 13, 2018 12:00 AM

    This is far from the first time Nigel Kennedy has performed jazz at London's Ronnie Scott's, but there was a big difference on this thrilling first night of a season of eight shows dedicated to the music of George Gershwin. This time there were no electric violins or drums, but only a cello, double bass, and the acoustic guitarists Rolf Bussalb and seven-string innovator Howard Alden. Cracking ga...
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  • Avie Records' Simon Foster announces retirement / billboard - Music Week
    Posted At: January 26, 2018 12:00 AM

    Simon Foster, who has spent four decades at the top of the classical music industry, has announced his retirement. Following an early spell at EMI Classics, where he signed Nigel Kennedy, Foster was headhunted by Richard Branson to be the founding MD of Virgin Classics, before going on to lead BMG Classics UK. In 1992, he co-founded Avie Records, which was at the forefront of the artist-ownership busines...
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  • Nigel Kennedy set to headline Perth Festival of the Arts / The Courier
    Posted At: January 6, 2017 12:00 AM

    Nigel Kennedy, the best-selling classical violinist of all time, has been revealed as the headline act for this year's Perth Festival of the Arts. He will play his version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons at the opening concert on Sunday May 21 in Perth Concert Hall. For more than 25 years Nigel Kennedy has been acknowledged as one of the world's leading violin virtuosos and is regarded as one of th...
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  • Nigel Kennedy plays Symphony Hall / Birmingham Post
    Posted At: February 2, 2016 12:00 AM

    Nigel Kennedy clumps on stage in fluorescent yellow trainers and a donkey-jacket. Of course he does: that's who he is, that's what he does. If that bothers you, you'd already have seen enough to get steam jetting out your ears: the pretentious publicity, the daft programme notes (he's making Vivaldi "relevant"), the eye-watering ticket prices (he'd never get away with those in the "classical ghetto"). ...
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  • Nigel Kennedy Vivaldi: The New Four Seasons / Sydney Morning Herald review
    Posted At: January 28, 2016 12:00 AM

    Vivaldi's Four Seasons is, along with Pachelbel's Canon, the most overplayed classical work of recent decades. It is found constantly on soundtracks, ads, telephone-hold music, in lifts and supermarkets. I would not mourn if I never heard it again. But a new version by Nigel Kennedy demands attention. The punk enfant terrible burst on to the classical scene with a blazing rendition in 1989 th...
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  • Nigel Kennedy plays Vivaldi Four Seasons at Bristol's Colston Hall / theguardian review
    Posted At: January 25, 2016 12:00 AM

    If public perception is that he is defined by his relationship with Vivaldi's Four Seasons, then, reasons violinist Nigel Kennedy, the best way to show how he's moved on is through that same work. This is the rationale for The New Four Seasons and Kennedy's current tour, which opened at Bristol's Colston Hall. Kennedy's 1989 recording of Vivaldi's work with the English Chamber Orchestra has sold over...
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  • Nigel Kennedy: Vivaldi - The New Four Seasons / The Strad review
    Posted At: December 21, 2015 12:00 AM

    How do you like your Vivaldi? Classic, like the several recordings by I Musici, or fiercely 'authentic', like Adrian Chandler's recent disc (see November issue)? Cool like James Ehnes (see page 90) or eccentric like Red Priest? Nigel Kennedy's (in)famous 1989 recording should need no introduction but here he returns to this evergreen set of concertos with the benefit of a quarter of a cen...
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  • Nigel Kennedy Vivaldi: The New Four Seasons / The Independant review
    Posted At: October 30, 2015 12:00 AM

    There are obvious precedents for a performer's wholesale change of approach to a beloved staple of their repertoire – one thinks of the differences between Glenn Gould's 1955 and 1981 Goldberg Variations, for instance. Gould, a jazz aficionado himself, might have enjoyed Nigel Kennedy's updating of the Four Seasons: his augmentations here are rarely rudely iconoclastic, restricted mostly to the use...
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  • Classicalite PREMIERE: Nigel Kennedy 'Vivaldi: The New Four Seasons' - WATCH
    Posted At: September 2, 2015 12:00 AM

    Our world sure seemed different 25 years ago. Back then, Nigel Kennedy, l'enfant terrible of the violin, made beguiling records for EMI. And a quarter century ago, he cut one with the English Chamber Orchestra. Entitled Vivaldi: Four Seasons, it's been certified by the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling classical work of all time. As Monsier Karr duly noted, though, the more things ...
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  • Nigel Kennedy - 'When I heard Jimi Hendrix, he made me want to play the violin like a guitar' / Daily Mail
    Posted At: August 24, 2015 12:00 AM

    At 58, with greying hair, Nigel Kennedy is more wise old sage than wild child these days. But the violin maestro is still a rock 'n' roll rebel at heart – which is why he's going on tour with the music of the Purple Haze guitar star. Each, in his own way, is notorious: Jimi Hendrix, the tragic bad-boy rock 'n' roll guitarist, and Nigel Kennedy, the fiddling firebrand who upset the world of...
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  • Nigel Kennedy promotes historic Violin auction
    Posted At: October 20, 2014 12:00 AM

    Nigel Kennedy is lending his services to London based instrument dealership, J&A Beare, who – after a century of deliberation – have finally decided to enter the auction market. With over 120 years in the business, Beares is Europe's leading purveyor of antique stringed instruments and their reputation as the world's most respected and expert violin dealer in buying, selling, making ...
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  • Classical violinist Nigel Kennedy takes bow with jazz gig after Oxford concert
    Posted At: June 5, 2014 12:00 AM

    WORLD-FAMOUS violinist Nigel Kennedy wowed audiences in a special city concert then popped round the corner to play an impromptu gig at a jazz club. The virtuoso played Brahms' Symphony No. 3 in F major and Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major in a performance alongside the Oxford Philomusica at the New Theatre on Tuesday night. Mr Kennedy then went on to surprise fans at Oxford's jazz club Th...
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  • Written entirely for violin, orchestra, band and voices and inspired by the elements air, earth, fire and water, Nigel Kennedy's Four Elements takes the listener on a multi-genre musical journey of exhilaration, contemplation and celebration
    Posted At: October 11, 2011 12:00 AM

    Written entirely for violin, orchestra, band and voices and inspired by the elements air, earth, fire and water, Nigel Kennedy's Four Elements takes the listener on a multi-genre musical journey of exhilaration, contemplation and celebration. This work is a suite of pieces which Nigel originally conceived as his own 21st-century response to Vivaldi's baroque masterpiece in the sense of creat...
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  • Nigel Kennedy surprises the music industry with a breathtaking jazz recording of 'Blue Note Sessions'
    Posted At: July 21, 2007 12:00 AM

    After decades of dazzling the world with record-breaking classical performances, the English violin virtuoso Nigel Kennedy has surprised the music industry with a breathtaking jazz recording. He has become the first EMI Classics violinist to be invited into the fabled Blue Note family, with his new album Blue Note Sessions marking the start of a completely new career path within the m...
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