08 April 2014 - 0 Comments

Fiona Pears continues to electrify audiences with her virtuosity on the violin. Now she intrigues with a seamless collaboration with Christchurch guitar duo, La Petite Manouche.

With the assured accompaniment of husband Ian Tilley on piano and keyboard, Pears and La Petite Manouche provide musical magic in the form of bluesy and beautiful duets interspersed with flying fingered Folk, Celtic, Jazz, Jewish and Classical compositions, many owing a nod to the French Gypsy guitarist, Django Reinhardt

“Banish from your minds all preconceptions of orthodoxy in the world of the violin. Fiona Pears has largely rewritten the script.” NZ Herald“

That Pears’ playing is outstanding throughout goes without saying, outrageously brilliant and dazzling in her technique, Pears’ love of what she is doing shines through every note.”Christchurch Press

The brand new CD Swing Driven Thing is released nationwide on April 3rd 2014 to coincide with her NZ tour of the same name.

“This CD is a little different to my other releases. People have been asking me for years about recording a swing album. I’ve always loved the music of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, and although I often play this music live, I haven’t recorded much of it until now. As always with my CDs, I like to have a mixture of styles to keep it interesting for the listener. So there’s everything from the beautiful Django piece, Nuages, my own arrangement of Duke Ellington’s famous, Caravan, right through to a few of my own compositions, including the more classical, More Than a Memory.

As you can see from the cover, this album is intended to be fun! I had a great time recording it and I hope the listener will hear this in the performances…”

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