A virtuosic violinist and musical chameleon, Véronique Serret is just as comfortable playing with rock bands as she is with symphony orchestras.
Now she leads classical group Omega Ensemble in Max Richter’s chart-topping global sensation The Four Seasons Recomposed, hitting the Melbourne Recital Centre on April 15.
Serret says she can’t resist drawing from her experience with the entire spectrum of music. “Many violinists lead Richter’s recomposition with a traditional technique and style. I’m excited to give this performance a truly unique character.”
Re:Classical
- Monday April 15
- Melbourne Recital Centre
- You can buy tickets here
Keep up with the latest music news, features, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
A celebrated violinist, vocalist and composer, Serret doesn’t come from a musical family.
“My cousin, who looked after me when I was younger, played both the violin and the piano,” she says. “I wanted to be like him so I would often pretend to play. What really made me fall in love with the violin is its vast reach throughout time.”
“There are so many possibilities with the sound and colours and expressions of this instrument, and so many ways to play it,” she muses. “I love its timbre and am often still discovering combinations. They say that the violin is the closest instrument to the human voice.”
Serret’s career stretches from folk to rock, classical to experimental, all of which she’s played in major performance halls and theatres across the globe and alongside some of the world’s biggest names.
“I love all kinds of shows,” she says, “those that are intimate, [those] where you can feel the stage vibrating, and everything in between.” Ultimately for Serret, it’s all about the audience. “Every now and then there is a special show where you can feel the room, and an experience is created with the audience in that moment. I love that reciprocation.”
For classical music enthusiasts, novices and everyone else in between, Re:Classical couldn’t be a better excuse to go out and see some live music this April.
Serret describes Richter’s contemporary reimagining of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons as new and exciting, but easy to connect to. “It’s one of the best-known and most loved pieces of classical music ever,” she says. “It is a very powerful work. People love to feel that something is familiar.”
In addition to Richter’s Four Seasons, the performance also includes a new work by American composer Jessie Montgomery – of which this performance will be the world premiere. Serret describes the work as full of “quasi-electric guitar” violin moments, all of which she is “very excited to work on”.
When she’s not touring, Serret spends her time in the studio working on music of her own. Migrating Bird, the musician’s latest album, will be out May 24 with the single Carbon Footprint out now.
You can buy tickets to Re:Classical here.
This article was made in partnership with Omega Ensemble.
