MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- Music City has a new fan in British born classical violinist Kerenza Peacock.
Peacock is best known for her classical trio work and for soloist performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. But last year Peacock took a musical left turn, joining a London based Bluegrass group The Cole Porters.
Peacock has been playing the violin for three decades, but says her classical career hasn’t afforded her with the freedom to improvise onstage.
“You don’t really have the freedom to play it or interpret it how you would like,” Peacock explains, “because there are so many conventions of musicians and violinists who’ve gone before you; that you are expected to play almost the same interpretations that they did.”
Earlier this year, Peacock spent some time in Middle Tennessee, studying Bluegrass fiddle with area artists and taking in as many local performances as she could manage.
“There were so many creative bands that were doing so many different things,” she recalls. “I mean, there’s not even a name for the style of music that they were playing, and I find that so many musicians that are drawn into the Bluegrass style are so creative, that they are creating a whole new genre.”
Peacock hasn’t abandoned her classical career. She says the time she’s spending in Nashville and touring with the Cole Porters will inform her performance of the classics.
“Beethoven was an astonishing improviser, Everyone tends to forget this. But having been onstage improvising, and then I go and play a Beethoven piece onstage, it makes me approach it totally differently, because I realize how he was improvising in the first place,” she said.
If you’d like to check out some of Kerenza Peacock’s classical recordings, look for her on Franklin based Naxos Records. If you want to hear her bluegrass fiddling, search for the Cole Porters on Youtube.