Review: Nigel Kennedy & Friends, Symphony Hall, Birmingham
The always irrepresible violin star Nigel Kennedy was in high spirits, even by his standards, for his gala concert at his favourite Birmingham venue after Villa Park.
The audience could hear roars and guffaws from backstage led by the impish 60-year-old (yes, the former wunderkind will qualify for his bus pass in five years) before the concert had even begun.
Maybe it was due to his claret and blue team's 2-0 home victory that afternoon over Sheffield Wednesday but it was certainly also because Kennedy was surrounded by his musical friends, including fellow former students of New York's prestigious Juilliard School of music and one of his violin heroes, the pioneering jazz-rock fiddler Jean-Luc Ponty.
Kennedy took a near sellout audience on a three and a half hour musical journey from Bach to Led Zeppelin via the Balkans, and it was exhilarating.
The mercurial bowman with trademark spiked hair showed both his dynamism and deftness of touch in the opening concerto from JS Bach, then came a truly impressive duet with cellist Peter Adams on Halvorsen's Passacaglia after Handel.
