Nigel Kennedy (born 28 December 1956) is an English violinist and violist. He made his early career in the classical field, and he has performed and recorded most of the major violin concerti. He later included jazz, klezmer and other genres in his repertoire.

Nigel Kennedy's grandfather was Lauri Kennedy, a British-born musician and principal cellist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, who played with Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Arthur Rubinstein and others. His grandmother was Dorothy Kennedy, a pianist, who accompanied John McCormack and taught Enrico Caruso's children. Lauri and Dorothy settled in Australia, where their son, the cellist John Kennedy, was born. At the age of 24, John moved to England and joined the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, later becoming the principal cellist of Sir Thomas Beecham's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. While in England, John developed a relationship with an English pianist, Scylla Stoner, with whom he eventually toured in 1952 as part of the Llewellyn-Kennedy Piano Trio (with the violinist Ernest Llewellyn; Stoner was billed as "Scylla Kennedy" although she and John never married). However, John ultimately left Stoner and returned to Australia, unaware she was pregnant by him. John remained unaware of the existence of his son, Nigel Kennedy, until they met for the first time when Nigel was 11. Nigel Kennedy has about 30 close relatives in Australia, whom he visits whenever he tours there.

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The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and the ECO Ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall. It is also the resident orchestra at Grange Park Opera, and regularly tours in the UK and internationally.

The ECO has its roots in the Goldsbrough Orchestra, founded in 1948 by Lawrence Leonard and Arnold Goldsbrough. The group took its current name in 1960, when it expanded its repertoire beyond the Baroque period for the first time. Its repertoire remained limited by the group's size, which has stayed fairly consistently at around the size of an orchestra of Mozart's time.

Shortly afterwards, it became closely associated with the Aldeburgh Festival, playing in the premieres of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Owen Wingrave, Curlew River and several other of his works. Britten conducted the orchestra on several occasions, and made a number of records with the group.

The orchestra did not at this time have a principal conductor, but worked closely with a succession of guest conductors including Raymond Leppard, Colin Davis and Daniel Barenboim. In 1985 Jeffrey Tate was appointed the ensemble's first principal conductor. In 2000, Ralf Gothóni was appointed the ECO's second principal conductor.

In June 2009, the ECO named Paul Watkins its new music director, effective with the 2009-2010 season, for an initial contract of 3 years.[1] Currently, the ECO's principal guest conductor is Roy Goodman. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.