NIGEL Kennedy, one of the world’s leading violinists, will be back on his old stamping ground this weekend.

Kennedy, who lived for a number of years in West Malvern, will be at the town’s Forum Theatre on Saturday and Sunday, April 16 and 17 for a concert in which he is joined on stage by the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra.

He said: “I always love playing with this fantastic orchestra. It’s made up of such passionate musicians”.

They have joined forces for a southern-England tour of The New Four Seasons and Kennedy’s own Dedications.

Kennedy recorded Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons back in 1989 and sold over two million copies, making history to become one of the best-selling classical albums of all time. In 2015 he revisited The Four Seasons with a new interpretation, embracing new developments in music technology, styles and instruments.

Having trained at the Menuhin School and the Juilliard School of Music Kennedy has since led trailblazing projects, which have seen him perform on electric violins, combining jazz, rock and classical idioms.

The Oxford Philharmonic has worked with him on numerous occasions in the past and in a variety of musical styles and collaborative settings.

Since Marios Papadopoulos established the orchestra in 1998, the Oxford Philharmonic has grown steadily in stature, now attracting some of the world’s leading musicians as soloists and conductors, such as Valery Gergiev, András Schiff, Lang Lang, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Maxim Vengerov who, along with Kennedy, hold the orchestra in high regard. 

Performing regularly in the intimate surroundings of Sir Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre, the musicians of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra include some of the UK’s finest players who are attracted to the flexibility, variety of work and artistic quality.