At least two festivals launched on Friday night. The London Jazz Festival kicked off nine days of the world's best and most imaginative jazz fushion. Serious, who produce the Festival and Radio Three, who broadcast it, have turned this into one of the most compelling and relevant of the contemporary festivals. And watch out for the plan's they're brewing for 2012 too. The opening night gig at The Barbican (another venue with important 2012 ambitions) featured another astonishing performance by the resurgent Nigel Kennedy.
Just a mile or so away on the same night Nitin Sawney performed his new London soundtrack with visuals projected on the UK's biggest big screen. The BFI's Imax was the venue for the first night of OneDotZero - a buzzy weekend-long digital media festival. Sawney's latest piece is a timely musical study of the capital post 7/7. Provocative, mesmeric and captivating, Sawney's music captures the zeitgeist of the city in a way that few can achieve. In the most organic and elegant of ways he blends musical cultures in the way that the city melds different communities. His musicianship is world class, and his musical vision is London at its articulate and challenging best.
Last night it was the London Symphony Orchestra’s chance to inspire. Their ‘On Track’ project links the orchestra over the period up to 2012 to young musicians from schools throughout 10 East London boroughs, including some of the poorest and toughest in the UK. “Take a Bow” was the first evening when the London Symphony Orchestra played alongside 100 school musicians of all ages and abilities in their St Lukes performance space. There was real passion and delight on the faces of the hard bitten professional players, but it was as nothing compared with the saucer eyes of the children – some only recently taken up their instruments and others so small that they were dwafted by their cellos or violas.
It was a night that most of those children will never forget and as the scheme grows over the next four years thousands more will benefit. The London Symphony Orchestra has just applied for and been granted London 2012’s ‘Inspire’ mark for this project to join the Cultural Olympiad. I’m extremely proud that the London Symphony Orchestra has drawn inspiration from London 2012 to drive this scheme forward. Based on last night, the feeling is mutual!
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