From Stradivarius to Stentor

My life’s ambition, aged 7, was to play on Top of the Pops. But just as I started to get asked to play for pop stars, they stopped making the programme. All was saved this Christmas, however, when they brought TOTP back to life for a Christmas special. I played for JLS, on Top of the Pops, shown on Christmas Day. I was glad to see I was on TV just before the Queen's speech – pity it was wearing a cross between a belly dancing outfit and a Xmas tree. I was the one coughing at the dry ice and jumping at the fireworks. The screaming of the fans was deafening, bordering on lunatic, and when one of the members of JLS came over to talk to me, I thought some of the girls in the front row were actually going to hurt me.

Also at age 7, it was my ambition to play a Stradivarius violin, and now my wish had come true. I was loaned one by the Royal Academy of Music, for a violin and piano recording I was making for Naxos, and some concertos I had around the same time. However combining a 17th century violin insured for £1 million, with a TV studio filled with dry ice and wires to trip over, is not a great idea. So, having spent the morning rehearsing on the Strad, I swapped it for a Stentor starter violin (worth £100) and headed to Top of the Pops. We were only miming so it made no difference! I left my flatmate baby-sitting the Strad and working out how to programme the video recorder.

I have been playing a lot of pop music recently - I am currently playing on 3 Pop albums in the Top 10, by Adele, Cee-Lo Green and Claire Maguire, and I led an orchestra at Abbey Road, for a very famous rockstar who has recently gone solo..

I was excited to be named on Paul Weller's latest album, 'Wake Up the Nation', especially when I heard it in my hairdressers. I did a concert with Claire Maguire in the Union Chapel, London. Just before it, I broke my E string, then my spare, and with 30 seconds to go before we were due on stage, I had to grab a violin from someone in another band!

This is me playing with Wired Strings and Claire.

In the Classical Charts, I was delighted that Eric Whitacre's 'Light and Gold' album, featuring the Pavao Quartet, hit number 1 in the UK and the USA simultaneously.

January was quite stressful; I had to record a concerto, sonata and horn trio for Naxos, learn 5 Vivaldi concertos, play Bartok’s 4^th Quartet and do my tax return. In all the snow and ice, I wondered what I should do if I had to make a split second decision whether to break a Strad or a wrist.

The guy at my local Tube station has asked me religiously every day for 7 years, 'Is that one of them Strads on yer back?' So as soon as I was loaned this violin for 2 months, I eagerly trotted off to the Tube every morning, dying for him to ask me so I could finally say , 'YES!'..... and he didn't ask once.

This is me playing the Four Seasons on the Strad in St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square.

Someone wrote this review on their blog

'As I listened to Kerenza Peacock solo in THE FOUR SEASONS, playing the Royal Academy of Music’s Stradivarius, I couldn’t help but watch the audience. Being on the front row of the balcony, I could see the entire audience. There was not a person moving or yawning. It was an amazing feeling being in a room where 300 people were all focused on the same thing at the same time. It was almost surreal. The Strad was like the voice of angels. The cellist and the solo violinist had eye contact throughout, and I had the glorious advantage of watching this exchange. It was like being right inside theie heads. I paid particular attention to the violists whose contributing strings made the music rich and baroque. But the solo violinist Kerenza Peacock and her Stradivarius will be with me for a long time.' http://blog.londonconnection.com/?p=13910

And I will leave you with a notice that was on the wall at a recent Pavao Quartet concert.