Elsie's Column

  July 2005 - Nigel on my Mind........

I’m back after ten glorious days of stalking Nigel in the Netherlands and I need…………and I do mean NEED !.............to say two words. ‘ Thank’ and ‘ You.’ First of all, I need to say these two words to all the members of Nigel’s team for all their hard work in making these concerts possible, and especially to Steve (hi, guy !) without whom nothing would be possible at all. And thank you to the gentleman from Supierz Concert Management, who organized everything and courtesy of whom I now have a plastic name card that I can pin on and proclaim to the whole world that I am ‘Gast/Guest Nigel Kennedy !’ Thank you to the Polish Chamber Orchestra, who have so much fun playing with Nigel that it’s infectious and guarantees that we will all have fun as well. Indeed, when Sholto Byrnes commented on how much fun the musicians seem to be having, Nigel replied that they have ‘established this kind of rapport where we can have a laugh but still make some serious progress with the music itself. If everyone’s too uptight, it can stop the musicians really listening to each other.’ No danger of that happening with these guys ! In particular, thank you to Jakub Haufa, Pawel Gadzina, and Janusz Marynowski……….. I can’t pronounce any of their names, but they are now my friends ! Thank you to Tytus Wojnowicz and his magical oboe.! Thank you to Taro Takeuchi…………Taro, you’re beautiful ! Thank you to Veronika whose stimulating conversation shone a light on places in my mind I didn’t even know were there. Thank you to Vera for little NK. And finally thank you to Nigel for everything and most especially for the solo Bach you played as a final encore in Hasselt. I would cheerfully mortgage my house for a solo Bach CD from Nigel……………are you paying attention, EMI ? For once ?

And now………..what do I say about…………well, I guess he should be nameless ! …………..just a guy I met in the Netherlands !! When I am introduced to him, he says that he had noticed me the previous evening and thought that I was somebody’s mother !!!!! I AM somebody’s mother, I tell him……….I’m three somebodies’ mother ! Well, that’s not what he means. He thought I was maybe the mother of one of the members of the Polish Chamber Orchestra ! I am, believe it or not, speechless. I want to ask him which member of the Polish Chamber Orchestra he had in mind…………..well, I wouldn’t mind being mistaken for lovely Lena Zeliszewska’s mother (nobody would !) but what if he says Pawel’s mother ? Pawel has only one less grey hair than I do ! I decide to let it go. I decide that I really do not want to know. I smile graciously and change the subject. But that’s not the finish where this guy is concerned……..oh, no ! If you can imagine such a thing, he later sniffs at me to see if he can smell champagne (don’t ask, okay ??!!) and he does this without having written permission in triplicate from the Governor General of Canada at least 72 hours prior to the event !!!!!! If I report this to her……….yes, she’s a woman !...............it may spark an international incident, and, realistically, we’ve got enough problems already on the international scene, haven’t we ? I decide to let this go as well ! Actually, when I come to think about it, it was all Nigel’s fault in the first place because………………no, truly, guys, you don’t want to know ! Pax vobiscum, you know who you are !

What else do I remember ? Getting a parking ticket in Amsterdam and having to cross three canals to find the police station where I have to go into my poor confused little old lady routine so that my companion and I don’t get thrown into jail. (It worked !!!) Driving around Brussels looking for a gas station that’s open on a Sunday and then driving round the underground parking garage trying to return our rented car and being frustrated in this attempt by red and white poles hanging from the ceiling and blocking our entrance………….that’s until we investigate and find that they’re really flexible and just swing harmlessly to one side or the other when we drive through them ! Riding back to London in the Eurostar and wondering what on earth those red and white poles are there for anyway !!! And Nigel. Nigel in Rotterdam, Nigel in Utrecht, Nigel in Amsterdam, Nigel in Hasselt, Nigel in Kerkrade. Nigel ever gentle on my mind………….

Oh, yes. That elegiac fantasy for violin and oboe with accompanying string orchestra that everyone was talking about…………it turns out to be ‘Melody in the Wind !’ I’m not quite sure where the Iranian poet fits in, but Nigel mentioned that he wrote it originally for Stephane Grappelli………..do you suppose somebody could have mistaken him for an Iranian poet ? In any case, it was a beautiful surprise at the first concert and an anticipated delight in all the subsequent concerts, superbly played by Nigel and Tytus Wojnowicz and the Polish Chamber Orchestra…………….I had almost forgotten what a miracle it is. And now I’m getting e-mails by the dozen from people who were in the different audiences and want to know what it’s called and on which of Nigel’s CDs they can find it . (‘Kafka,’ ‘Classic Kennedy,’ and ‘Greatest Hits,’ in case you’ve forgotten.)

Back in London I contemplate extending my plane ticket and going to the Glastonbury Festival, where Nigel will be playing jazz with Jarek Smietana. I don’t contemplate it for long, since the tickets cost GBP 110 and they’re all sold out in any case. Back in Canada, I open my morning edition of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald to find a picture of a couple wading through muddy water and a short article about how much rain had fallen on the festival ! Just as well, then. Caitlin Moran, in ‘The Times Online,’ wrote :

‘Notions of Glastonbury as some super-exclusive, Cannes-like playground of the rich and beautiful are overplayed………..when all’s said and done the backstage area is still just a muddy field with a beer-tent in it. There are no yachts. Although, given the mud, one might be quite useful.’

She lets me know what I missed, though………. ‘at 3 p.m. on Saturday the riotously unlikely quartet of George Galloway, Peaches Geldof, Nigel Kennedy and Rod Liddle stood in the queue for chips in the Glastonbury backstage café.’ So why didn’t someone take a picture ?? Tell me that !

I’ve never actually heard Nigel play jazz live. Clearly, he regards playing jazz as an integral part of his musical expression. He told Lew Baxter that ‘this jazz stuff is more suited to the kind of bloke [he is] , really, because it’s more like musical priority less than protocol as in the classical world.’ He has a high opinion of Jarek Smietana and his fellow musicians………….. ‘they are really creative cats,’ he says and goes on to add that ‘these Polish jazz kids……….are real individual talents. Jarek on the guitar is a monster, man !’ I just hope that all this talk about them recording together next year is more than just talk ! Maybe by the time the CD is issued, I’ll have filled in this appalling gap in my Nigel experience by having heard them all live !!!!!!

This empathy which exists between Nigel and Jarek and the others obviously applies equally to his relationship with the Polish Chamber Orchestra. Beata Sadowska wondered why he became the artistic director of the Polish Chamber Orchestra, when he could have worked in New York, Paris or Sydney.

‘I preferred Poland,’ he says, ‘because musicians love their work here and they’re not scared of it. They don’t keep checking their watches, nervous that they’ll miss some bigger deal. We stimulate one another and we listen to each other, which is very important. Here musicians have this “thing,” the sparkle for playing.’

When one listens to the Polish Chamber Orchestra, there is no doubt about this, is there ? The ‘sparkle for playing’………………there couldn’t be a better description !

Till August.
Elsie