GO:CLASSICAL:NIGEL SPRINGS TO IT FOR SEASONAL CONCERTS.

Byline: PATSY FULLER

VIOLIN virtuoso Nigel Kennedy is to appear in Coventry next month.

Kennedy, hailed as one of the most important violinists Britain has ever produced, will join the English Symphony Orchestra in a "Vivaldi Experience" at Warwick Arts Centre on April 3.

The last-minute addition to the arts centre's musical diary is part of a tour by Kennedy and the ESO in preparation for a recording he will be making with the Berliner Philharmoniker later in April.

The Vivaldi Experience began at Bristol this week before moving to the orchestra's home of Malvern last night and tonight. It travels to Manchester and Cardiff before coming to Coventry.

The concerts will feature Summer and Winter from the popular Four Seasons as well as interpretations of some of the composer's lesser-known masterpieces, including concertos for violin, viola, cello, bass, lute oboe and harpsichord.

Kennedy's passion for Vivaldi's music, and the Four Seasons in particular, has brought him huge success. But his current project will explore wider aspects of the composer's genius - much of the his work has yet to be performed,

Kennedy's friend and touring partner Taro Takeuchi joins him for the tour, performing on lute and baroque guitar. Members of the ESO include Michael Bochmann and Janet Masters on violin, David Ponsford on harpsichord and Peter Adams on cello. Tickets cost from pounds 12.

THE critically-acclaimed Welsh National Opera will spring into action in Coventry and Birmingham next week.

Its run starts on Tuesday at the Birmingham Hippodrome with a new production of Tchaikovsky's passionate love story Eugene Onegin, conducted by the company's young music director Tugan Sokhiev. Coventry music lovers saw Sokhiev in action when he conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra at Warwick Arts Centre in November. This is his first new production with the company and features soprano Amanda Roocroft in her role debut as Tatyana and Romanian tenor Marius Brenciu as Lensky.

The five-day run in Birmingham also features revivals of two of the company's favourite productions, Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel and Puccini's Madam Butterfly.

And while the rest of the company is taking part in Hansel and Gretel on Thursday, the male chorus will be in Coventry, performing in Twenty Men Singing at Coventry Cathedral, taking in opera, folk songs, shanties and anthems.

A LEADING Czech quartet will wind up a concert series which has brought international string ensembles to Warwickshire over the winter.

The Skampa Quartet will perform works by Martinu, Suk, Smetana and Mozart at the Royal Pump Rooms, Leamington, on March 19. The Skampa Quartet was founded in 1989 at the Prague Academy, and has since become established on the international chamber music circuit. Box office 01926 496277.

CAPTION(S):

ACCLAIMED: Amanda Roocroft as Tatyana and Vladimir Moroz as Onegin in Eugene Onegin Picture by BILL COOPER; CONCERTS: Nigel Kennedy visits Warwick Arts Centre on April 3 as part of his Vivaldi Experience tour