Daisy Jopling Band

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".

Whether playing on an Antonio Gragnani violin made in Livorno in 1778 or on her Yamaha electric model, Jopling 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. "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."

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.

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."