Free as a bird… but a magical one that know how to transport your soul to faraway lands.

Yesterday I realized that the anniversary of Jacqueline Dupre’s debut concert  with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra was just a few days before my own debut original album release day as the orchestra posted a memory about her on their Facebook page.

 

It is kind of funny because lately, I am sort of thinking a lot about her. So I thought, well why not sharing my thoughts with all of you.

Jackie was always a source of inspiration and of courage to me. I have always been sort of in love with her. Her charisma and magnetism showing brightly through her playing and most of all, her great freedom of interpretation. I could listen to her for hours, thinking in awe, whoahhh she is as free as a bird… but a magical one, one that knows how to transport your soul to faraway lands. She was not just another talented cellist; to me she was more like a queen, an ethereal creature coming from another realm. Her playing of the Elgar Cello Concerto deemed as “legendary” had certainly a big influence and impact on my life and on my approach to violin when I first heard it, and still does.

Later, I discovered a controversial movie storytelling the life of the two sisters, Hilary, the flutist, and Jackie the cellist. The film is based on the posthumous memoir titled “A Genius in the Family”, written by the older sister Hilary and was only published after Jacqueline’s death.

The film adaptation portrays Jacqueline’ life as seen from her sister Hilary’s point of view before moving to the exact same events but portrayed through what the author would have imagined they’ve been inside Jacqueline’s own mind. I really loved the depth brought by that duality concept, and I thought it was such an interesting twist on things.

Even though this film adaptation contains factually incorrect elements that diverge from the original memoir in things such as Jacqueline being predatory and actively planning to seduce her sister’s husband, I honestly thought it was very touching and interesting to watch. You can feel the despair and the loneliness of Jackie brought by her incurable sickness, the multiple sclerosis. From a musician point of view too, you can’t help but being totally horrified at the mere thought of suddenly losing your ability to play and make music. All of this makes it easy for the viewer to relate to both sisters’ characters.

The director of the film, Anand Tucker, defends the film’s portrayal of an affair by arguing that numerous alternatives amount to canonisation also exists, and that he was “deeply moved by Hilary’s sacrifice”. The film and book were also defended for their emotional power and broad authenticity, despite some fictional content regarding aspects of Jacqueline’s personality and the specifics of events.

Writing in The Guardian, Hilary defended the film’s depiction of events and her sister’s personality, arguing that it accurately portrayed her darker side, her “MS side”; and in The New Yorker she argued that detractors simply “want to look only at the pieces of Jackie’s life they are ready to accept”. According to her, “the ravages of MS changed Jackie’s personality. The Jackie I knew and loved died years before her actual death in 1987, but to be truthful I had to show the MS side of her”.

If you haven’t already seen it I strongly recommend that you check it out.

Hilary & Jackie (movie trailer)

With all of that said, I also have a secret to share with you.

I finally worked on my own version of that famous Elgar Cello Concerto. The piece is featured on Hotaru’s Road, my first original album released worlwide today.

I guess Haru, , my 5 strings electric Yamaha is also partly responsible for the crazy idea born within me, because he opened a new world to me, one with shiny and tempting doors giving me the power of yielding a deep lower C string.

You probably already heard a bit about that, but there’s story alongside for my first original album.

I recorded the whole album with Haru, and it is my first time making an album, entirely with my electric, without using my classical violin at all.

 

Video of Broken Bird`s Lament

Get it on ….

 

After I wrote the story of that one scene I mentally labeled as “Broken Bird’s Lament

After I wrote the story of that one scene I mentally labeled as “Broken Bird’s Lament”, Elgar’s haunting theme was just constantly stuck in my head. It went to the point where I became totally obsessed with it. Even though it is originally a legendary cello piece, even though  I know it’s Jackie’s piece… I couldn’t fight the sudden desire that was burning me from within. I really wanted to make this piece my own. I felt like I needed my own Nika’s unique version, These tourmented feelings, the dark feelings kept deep inside me, and that I was trying to portray, could only  be sang freely on these haunted melodies, and through my own voice.

 

 

Broken Bird`s Lament and it`s haunting music is greatly inspired from the dark period I was talking about briefly at the start of

Actual Blog Post of a Lifetime: Or Birth of “Nika” the Mermaid Princess of the Stars

 

Its dark mood fits perfectly the sorrow, the deep sadness and the darkness lurking inside Seï, my fairy-tale’s protagonist. The haunting melody just suited the scene so perfectly that I couldn’t get away from the crazy thought of that moment. My friends, my manager at that time, everybody was telling me “You really are crazy, you know you can’t possibly do that”, but, inside me I secretly knew that it was too late, my mind had passed that point of no return and was set on the idea. I had already decided that “Broken Bird Lament” would be built around that theme.

Being my fans, you probably understand that much about me already. I like challenges, and I love to defy what can or can’t be done

I sure realize it might be presumptuous to try to redefine something that has already been labeled as “definitive” or “legendary” for someone else, but in my heart, my feeling at the time was that I just had to do it anyway. Being my fans, you probably understand that much about me already. I like challenges, and I love to defy what can or can’t be done. And my inspirations come from varied sources, like people I meet or even characters in books or games. My little inner universe has always been built around these kind of irresistible events, symbols or people that become my muses, and that is how and what I want to express myself, through my art, being it, imagery, storytelling or music.

 

Sweet dreams to you all,

Nika xxx

P.S. 2017 was really a year full of surprises… It is also the year where I became an official Yamaha Canada representative, but I will tell you that story some other time 😉

 

About Jacqueline Dupré (source Wikipedia)

 

Jacqueline Mary du Pré, OBE (26 January 1945 – 19 October 1987) was an English cellist. At a young age, she achieved enduring mainstream popularity unusual for a classical performer. Despite her short career, she is regarded as one of the more uniquely talented cellists of the second half of the twentieth century. Du Pré is most famous for her iconic recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor, her interpretation of which has been described as “definitive” and “legendary”.

Her career was cut short by multiple sclerosis, which forced her to stop performing at the age of 28. She battled the illness for many years, which ultimately resulted in an untimely death. Posthumously, she was the subject of a film entitled Hilary and Jackie (based on her siblings’ memoir, A Genius in the Family) that was factually controversial and criticized for sensationalising her private life.

Personal life

Du Pré met pianist Daniel Barenboim on New Year’s Eve 1966. Shortly after the end of the Six-Day War, she cancelled all her existing engagements (antagonising promoters), and they flew to Jerusalem. She converted to Judaism, and they were married on 15 June 1967 at the Western Wall. Du Pré’s sister Hilary married conductor Christopher “Kiffer” Finzi, and the couple had four children.


Nika Cantabile
Nika Cantabile

Nika Cantabile is an art-rock artist who takes her love of both music and literacy and intertwines them into one unique sound that has elements of Japanese, Roma and Celtic music with her own twist. Inspired by everyone from Tori Amos, Japanese guitarist AKIHIDE, Tolkien and Anne Rice, Nika has always had a way with creating stories around her music. * Nika as a Yamaha Canada representative, is performing on the Yamaha five strings electric YEV105 and SV255 models .