String Sensation Daisy Jopling to Perform at the Cutting Room

To categorize Daisy Jopling as a classical rock violinist is like saying the rainbow has only two colors. A sublimely gifted musician, Jopling relies on impeccable technique and passionate virtuosity to span the globe of musical influences, spirituals, pop, reggae, funk, Irish folk, gypsy tunes, Argentine tango and anything else that crosses her auditory path.

On February 17th audiences' senses will be awakened at a live performance by string sensation Daisy Jopling at New York's Cutting Room. The concert is a celebration of the release of "The Awakening", the eighth album from Jopling and her first album of original composition. Click here for tickets and details.

Whether playing on an Antonio Gragnani violin made in Livorno in 1778 or on her Yamaha electric model, Jopling always takes audiences on bold musical excursions. The result, as the Los Angeles Times put it, is a "genre-splicing, witty, creative fervor." For the CD, she incorporates a wild assortment of instrumentation, yes there's a beat box and a string orchestra, as well as styles... world music, classical and rock, roots, pop, funk.

A kinetic whirlwind on stage, the British-born Jopling has been drawing rapt attention since she made her debut at London's Royal Albert Hall at the age of 14. Tom Morris, Artistic Director of Britain's oldest theatre the Bristol Old Vic, noted "Daisy Jopling plays classical music with the energy and spontaneity of a rock musician. She has a lyrical intensity that seems to reach inside you with each stroke of the bow".

"Awakening" represents Jopling's growing strength and confidence in her own music. "It took me years of working on myself to gain a new perspective," she admits. "I realized I have something to say. I had to learn to stop criticizing or judging those musical ideas. The CD begins in darkness and ends with moments of the greatest hope and joyfulness. Each individual piece is a passage in my own life but I also see it as something we all experience, a universal journey. "

A graduate of the Royal College of Music, she gradually broke loose from the confines of a classical career, first by touring the world with the freewheeling string trio Triology and then with her own ensemble. She has contributed to film scores, including arranging and recording with Triology the movie music of Academy Award winner Hans Zimmer. Touring in 2016/17, the Daisy Jopling Band, featuring Brian Delma Taylor on flute, Brian Marsella on piano/keyboard, Lavondo Thomas on bass and Matthew Zebroski on drums, has stops in the US, Norway, Austria, England, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Mexico.

Over the course of her career, she's performed and toured with some of the world's leading musicians in a multitude of genres, a reflection of her musical wanderlust. Among them: Bobby McFerrin; Julian Rachlin; Janine Jansen; Rob Evan lead vocalist with Trans-Siberian Orchestra; legendary Cuban singer Omara Portuondo from the Buena Vista Social Club; Boris Grebenshikov, considered one of the founders of Russian rock; Indian classical/pop singer Shubha Mudgal; and Austrian jazz guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel.

Since then, Jopling has performed at major festivals and concert halls including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and the United Nations Assembly Hall alongside such artists as the legendary, award-winning gospel group The Blind Boys of Alabama, rapper/singer Akon, Brazilian singer/guitarist Gilberto Gil, reggae and hiphop artist Ky-Mani Marley and Afro pop-singer Salif Keita, as well as Whoopi Goldberg and Carl Lewis.

Several of the pieces, instrumentation and voices for the new CD come from work she composed for the String Pulse Experience, a concert she first put together for some 250 students ranging in age and skill levels in the Peekskill New York area where she now resides. The initial performance at the Paramount Hudson Valley received a standing ovation from a full house. Its success led to a similar concert in Lake Placid, the subject of a documentary that will air on PBS stations.

The concerts are one measure of Jopling's strong advocacy for music education. She established the Daisy Jopling Foundation to provide opportunities for children to experience the benefits of music as a life-changing tool. The foundation works to offer low- cost and tuition-free high quality music programs for children, as well as opportunities for them to perform on professional stages with world-class musicians.

Although she may defy easy categorization, Jopling-as the Evening Standard said-is simply "brilliantly entertaining."