Always Playing

by Nigel Kennedy

The virtuoso violinist who emerged in the late 1980s to shatter the stereotype of the serious classical musician offers a candid account of his life, from his difficult childhood to his extraordinary professional success

Genres: Biography, Music, Nonfiction, Memoir, Autobiography

154 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1992

Reviews

[Jeff Keehr · Rating 2 out of 5]

English violin player who has enough thoughts to fill a few pages gets a book contract and so does a lot of padding. Need I say more?

[Peter Bucknell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good to know Nigel's story.
He was an important character in the classical world, especially in the 80's and 90's when everyone had a stick up their bum

[Patti · Rating 2 out of 5]

I will buy that Nigel Kennedy is a fantastic musician, an independent thinker, a breaker of molds. An amazing author, however, he is sadly not. This book felt a lot more like one long diatribe against the classical music "establishment" and his battle with it than anything else. Although I have little experience, I'm guessing that in many cases what he writes is 100% true, however it gave the book this heavily negative and depressing slant. It was disjointed and was much less compelling than actually listening to the guy play his music.

My grandmother gave me this book probably 20 years ago when I was first starting on the violin, to encourage my creativity and interest (being an artist herself). I think this is the fourth time I've tried to read this book, and it definitely took some determination to get to the end. However, it has inspired me to embrace new styles of music and to spend more time with music ... so maybe in spite of everything else I've written, Nigel Kennedy would have considered this literary work a success in my case.