When Nigel Kennedy was a child prodigy who mastered the violin, he tried to fit in, but his hair wouldn’t let him. He had a wild mop of hair on top of his head that he couldn’t tame, no matter how hard he tried to gel it “like Bob Hope” or let it grow until he was told to cut it off. In the end, he gave in to his inner punk… and a star was born.
The former enfant terrible of the classical music world may be approaching his 70th birthday (his diary is so packed that plans are already being made for the big day, despite it being three years away), but his famous mohawk is still very much in evidence when he greets me by poking his head through the door of his Tardis-like home in north London, one of three houses he owns (he is thought to be worth around £5m).
The former enfant terrible of the classical music world may be approaching his 70th birthday (his diary is so packed that plans are already being made for the big day, even though it’s three years away), but his famous mohawk is still very much in evidence.
Aston Villa fan Nigel Kennedy and his son Sark in 2000. Sark, now 27, was sentenced during the Covid-19 pandemic when Nigel was in lockdown in Poland, so was unable to even see his son in court or in prison.
He’s wearing a vintage Aston Villa shirt – vintage in the sense that he’s had it for almost 50 years. He bows slightly and takes my hand to kiss it before showing me around. You won’t be surprised to read that this isn’t like other famous people’s homes, even if they’re worth several million. There’s barely a clear surface to be seen in the kitchen and the living room is covered in sheet music. His garden is so gloriously overgrown that a family of foxes have made it their home. “This is one of my oldest shirts, but the most striking. I wanted to look special,” he smiles. “What am I like, greasing everyone up? A bit like Keir Starmer.”
Nigel has always been known for his left-wing politics as well as his partisan lifestyle, so it comes as a surprise that he isn’t enamoured of our first Labour prime minister in 14 years. “I haven’t liked her since she banned real Labour members,” he tells me. “Like Corbyn, for example, who has been trying to do something about human rights and representing the people of his constituency. And that old man from Galloway. Even Diane Abbott. Unbelievable. I mean, she talks a lot and that’s tiresome, but there’s something wrong with that, isn’t there?”
I tell him that Corbyn – for whom Nigel rejoined the Labour Party before leaving again when he was thrown out – was forced to resign because of his anti-Semitism. “Do you think he’s anti-Semitic?” he asks. I nod. “I’ve never been aware of it,” he insists.
I remind him that his main residence in Poland, where he lives with his wife, the artist Agnieszka, is in the countryside outside Krakow, just a few kilometres from Auschwitz. “Yes,” he agrees. “But I find it hard to imagine anyone being anti-Semitic, although, in fact, there is a government radio station in Poland that preaches anti-Semitic and homophobic things,” he says. Most of the time he tries not to think about the right-wing politics of his adopted country. “I’m in the mountains, and the main concern is wild boars, bears and wolves, which are a more imminent threat than anything to do with genetic background.”
He lives in a small village, in a house so eco-friendly it even has wooden drainpipes. Although he is very conscious of his use of plastics, he admits, in a theatrical whisper, that he is not sure about global warming. “I think we have replaced truth with facts,” he says. “I have a big problem with fearmongering about global warming, as if we are the ones causing it. I am a conservationist, I believe in not stuffing dolphins with plastic, and I see the hypocrisy of going to a supermarket and finding everything covered in plastic. But I am sceptical that global warming is man-made. It is arrogant to think that we are the cause of everything.”
In Poland, global warming doesn’t affect him too much. In winter, the farmer next door has to go out with his tractor and make sure that he and Agnieszka don’t get stuck in the snow for months. “Everyone knows what everyone else is doing, the rumour spreads to everyone, whether they’ve killed a wolf in the forest or, like me, they’re constantly playing the violin,” he says. “Some people know me because I was one of the first to go to Poland when it was still transitioning from socialism to capitalism in the early 1980s. At one point, I was like an exotic bird, but now I’m just a pigeon among the rest of the British tourists.”
He laughs because he is a jovial guy, albeit one with strong opinions. He remains the world’s best-selling classical violinist, but there is a sense of mischief about him. Much was made of his mocking accent when he first appeared on the scene (after all, both his father and grandfather were eminent musicians), but, having grown up first in Brighton and then Solihull, the half-Cockney, half-Brummie accent is still present.
His best friends remain Aston Villa fans – in fact, he says he was so upset that Jack Grealish was left out of the England squad for the Euros (Jack’s father is one such football friend) that he was unable to support the team at the tournament. It is this naturalness of the football fan combined with the refined beauty of the classical violin that makes Nigel who he is.
He is the George Best of the classical world and, like Best, his love of partying is legendary. He admits that his biggest outlay has been on alcohol. “It can be close to six figures. I look after everyone. There’s champagne, expensive hotels… My favourite club is my hotel room, where I play with friends until the early hours of the morning.”
He’s done quite a few drugs over the years, but now he sticks to marijuana. I wonder if he ever went overboard with the partying? “No, I’m a happy cat now, so whatever got me here has to be okay. I might remember something from the past where I wasn’t happy and I think that was a turning point, but that got me to where I am today.”
His parents both had alcohol problems and his only son, Sark, with ex-partner Eve Westmore, has been jailed twice for supplying cocaine. He was caught with £15,000 of the drug in a car in 2021 and served a second prison term in 2022 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
Nigel, whose third home is in Malvern, where Sark grew up, believes his son is turning his life around. “In a way, prison has done him good,” says Nigel. “It’s made him a man, he’s not a grown-up boy any more. It’s like being in the army, I suppose. It makes you stronger.”
Sark, 27, was sentenced during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Nigel was in lockdown in Poland, so he was unable to even see his son in court or in prison. “We were locked down and he went through the entire COVID-19 pandemic without having to get vaccinated, which is good because now people are hearing the bad news about vaccines,” he says, digressing slightly.
“He was moved around a lot within the prison system and I didn’t see him again until he was finished with his sentence. I felt like I was in a strange position. I felt completely helpless and worried for his life. I prayed that he would get out of there safely, and thankfully he did.”
The violinist’s only son, Sark, with former partner Eve Westmore, has been jailed twice for supplying cocaine.
Kennedy is the George Best of the classical world and, like Best, his love of partying is legendary.
Now Sark is hard at work with “aerodynamics, bearings and so on,” says Nigel. “He’s not afraid of work and is going in a positive direction. In that sense, he came out of prison unscathed. Another eventuality could have happened, but as things stand, it somehow helped him find a better direction. You always worry about your kids, don’t you? But I’m glad he’s doing well.”
Nigel’s father was a cellist and he abandoned his mother, Scylla, a pianist, when she was pregnant with Nigel. She taught him to play the violin and we talk about her new book Songs My Mother Never Taught Me, a compendium for beginners. Her message? “It doesn’t matter if it’s a 70-year-old or a 12-year-old – it’s about everyone having their chance,” she says.
Next month she will play at the legendary jazz club Ronnie Scott’s, where she has been performing since she was 14, and says it is always a thrill to perform at the iconic club. “Being where Ella Fitzgerald was means a lot to me,” she says. She loves jazz as much as she loves Vivaldi. Her own compositions, which she will play at Ronnie Scott’s, incorporate both, but she is annoyed that people find it surprising. “I don’t understand why people try to pigeonhole us,” she sighs. “We all have prejudices, but it makes me angry that they are present in music. If we can’t have an open mind about music, how can we solve the problem of the human race?”
- Nigel Kennedy Originals: Live at Ronnie Scott’s, 25-28 September. Songs My Mother Never Taught Me: For Violin And Piano will be released by Chester Music in September.