Nigel Kennedy: why I’m going on stage to play jazz with my ‘young cats’

Nigel Kennedy, the bestselling classical violinist, has never forgotten two mentors who helped turn him into a global superstar: Yehudi Menuhin, the classical virtuoso, and Stéphane Grappelli, the great jazz violinist.

Now Kennedy has revealed that he himself has been quietly mentoring young violinists for years, and that two of them will perform with him in London. He told the Observer : “It’s been nice to put something back into the area that’s given me so much.”

He has responded to budding professional musicians who have come backstage after his concerts, shyly requesting an autograph or the chance to meet him. If they were carry­ing an instrument case, he asked them to play for him there and then.

“I like hearing young cats that are enthusiastic about the violin,” he said. “They’ve played in front of my band and other people in the dressing room.”

It has led to him mentoring some of those young musicians between his international concerts. He said: “I get them to play, but I’m not like one of these horrible tyrannical maestros who interrupt the kid after 30 seconds of playing. I always let them play the whole piece of music before I even say anything. I try and give them technical hints with the instruments so they can play easier.”

He guides them, for example, on whether they are playing loudly enough: “A lot of people [play] like ­little mice in a hole. If you’re in a concert hall with no amplification, you need to play for the back of the hall.

“I’m always trying to get kids, adults and all the orchestras I meet to make a more dynamic contrast, because it’s like punctuation – if you listen to someone who talks too much and they’ve got no commas or full stops, it just becomes like a drone, doesn’t it? It’s the same with music.

“Some of these simple basics of making music are the ones which get glossed over too easily when people get bound up in technical difficulties.”

Kennedy is one of the most important violinists Britain has ever produced. He was Menuhin’s protege, studying at the Yehudi Menuhin school in Surrey, where the celebrated violinist personally paid his fees, because Kennedy’s single mother would have struggled with them. Kennedy recalled: “He was completely crazy to do that, but it gave me a lot of inspiration.”

Kennedy was just 13 when he first played with Grappelli at the Menuhin school, which led to many more sessions. While other teachers frowned on the youngster’s interest in jazz, Menuhin told them: “It’s great that the kid is actually thinking for himself.”

Menuhin, Kennedy said, “wasn’t trying to make clones out of all of us.”

Kennedy went on to break down barriers , particularly with young people, through virtuoso performances of everything from classical music to jazz and rock.

His 1989 Vivaldi : The Four Seasons became the world’s biggest-selling classical recording, also making it on to the pop music charts. His wide-­ranging repertoire includes music by Jimi Hendrix , whom he regards as one of the foremost 20th-century composers.

Related: Nigel Kennedy on his Classic FM fight: ‘Hendrix is like Beethoven, Vivaldi is more Des O’Connor’

He believes that music teachers should go beyond classical music and incorporate jazz and other styles into their lessons: “If we can’t admit that improvised forms of rock or hip-hop are as good as classical music, and just as likely to be inspirational, then it’s perfect for racism and every other form of prejudice. If we keep hold of our prejudices in music , then we’re going to have a prejudiced society where people are really held back by racism, antisemitism or homophobia.”

Of the young musicians he has mentored, he said: “When I hear them play well, it’s fantastic to think that maybe I just had a millimetre of influence in helping them.”

Two of those young musicians will play with Kennedy at Ronnie Scott’s, the London jazz club, where he and his band begin a four-night residency on 25 September.

Kennedy’s own compositions will also feature in a forthcoming music book, Songs My Mother Never Taught Me , which will be published later this year by Chester Music.