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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZKENNEDY, Nigel(b 28 December 1956, Hove, Sussex) Violinist, composer. Already showing talent, he was sent to the Yehudi Menuhin boarding school at age six just as his mother (a piano teacher) remarried and moved hundreds of miles away: he is not the first child to practise every day for many years because it seemed easier than any alternative. He began composing as a teenager. Duets with pianist Peter Pettinger on Chandos included a disc of Elgar and Plays Jazz '84 (classic pop songs, 'Body And Soul' etc); Plays Ellington And Bartók '87 was a solo disc on EMI. His recording of the Elgar concerto on Decca was critically acclaimed and inevitably raised memories of the recording made by Menuhin as a child with the composer himself. Becoming a high-profile EMI artist he recorded the Beethoven, Brahms, Bruch, Mendelssohn, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky concerti, plus some solo Bach etc as fillers; from '89 he was promoted by John Stanley (former manager of the Bay City Rollers) and Kennedy's recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons was a best-seller although the CD's playing time was only 41 minutes. Whose idea it was for Kennedy to dress like an adolescent and adopt a trashy 'estuary' accent is not known, but media hype of a classical 'punk' meant that some high-toned elements turned up their noses, while honest critics had to admit that with all his mannerisms Kennedy had what it took: his Brahms (his favourite concerto) is the slowest on record, but his musicianship pulls it off; his Beethoven was recorded live, with an improvised cadenza in the last movement seeming to point to 20th-century music. His favourite composers were Bach, Bartók and Jimi Hendrix, because all three were magpies and inventors; he sometimes inserted a Hendrix line into a cadenza. He suddenly quit playing live concerts '92, saying, 'It has bugged the shit out of me for a long time that the subscription concerts I do are mainly for rich, upper-class people.' This was nonsense; nothing was stopping anybody from buying a ticket, and the hype must have had some kids listening to the classics. He had serious surgery to remove cysts on his neck which could have ended his career; and then fired Stanley, having discovered that he had been shown requests for interviews from tabloid newspapers but not those from quality papers or serious magazines. He rested for a while, then put together a band and made Kafka '96 on EMI, guests including Jane Siberry, Brix Smith and Stephen Duffy. His own music was said to be full of insidious, lyrical tunes by those who liked it, but some critics used words like 'bizarrely unpleasant' and 'appalling'. He became Kennedy '97 with a new recording of the Elgar concerto with Sir Simon Rattle, dropping Nigel, which he'd always hated. Apparently he had restored the Nigel by the time of Four Elements 2011 on Sony. Steve Schwartz reviewed it:
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