Les Rois Vagabonds

Julia Moa Caprez

 

" Vivaldi’s always been a part of my life. My father used to listen to him rocking me, baby, in his rocking chair. When I was a kid, at the Tonhalle in Zurich, I saw Nigel Kennedy in a leather jacket and with a punk crest playing The Four Seasons. He walked around the stage, circling the orchestra, jumping and tapping his feet like a hip-hop dancer, while from his violin came the twittering of spring birds, the thunder of a summer storm, the melancholy of an autumn day, the serenity of a winter landscape. He grooved and levitated at the same time ; I was fascinated. I wanted to play The Four Seasons too !

I insisted on learning the violin, I was four years old. And four years later, following the japanese "Suzuki Method", I presented my first Vivaldi, Concerto in A minor, in public. Playing the violin had become a daily habit, like brushing my teeth! Ensembles, orchestras, concerts in Scotland, Russia and beyond... the violin progressively took over my life.  But my back hurt... My body needed to move! So I set aside my instrument to study dance in Amsterdam and circus arts in Buenos Aires and San Francisco.  My violin dozed in its case while I bounced from street theatre to cabaret, from circus troupes to dance companies.

Years later, Vivaldi caught up with me. I was working on developing my own clown character with the help of different teachers, Jeff Raz, Yvo Mentens and Caroline Obin, when I realised that the violin was an integral part of my voice at the deepest, most basic level. Creating Les Rois Vagabonds with Igor Sellem allowed me to reconnect with that voice. ”