Nigel Kennedy

Born in Brighton in 1956, Nigel Kennedy began violin studies at an early age at the Yehudi Menuhin School before continuing at the Juilliard School in New York with Dorothy DeLay. Initially associated with the classical repertoire, Kennedy built his career around a highly personal style that also led him into jazz, rock, pop and klezmer, and he has also performed on viola and piano. After his first recording in 1984 with Elgar's Violin Concerto, he made his breakthrough at the end of the 1980s with his version of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, recorded in 1989 with the English Chamber Orchestra — an album that remains a landmark in his classical discography. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s he substantially broadened his scope, with projects such as a tribute to Jimi Hendrix on The Kennedy Experience (1999), an orchestral reworking of The Doors' universe with Jaz Coleman on Riders on the Storm: The Doors Concerto (2000), collaboration with the Polish group Kroke on East Meets East (2003) and a venture into jazz with The Blue Note Sessions (2006). Partly based in Poland, Nigel Kennedy has also conducted the Polish Chamber Orchestra and founded the Orchestra of Life in 2010, continuing a career that intersects serious music, improvisation and popular forms.