Free Kavakos!

Yuri Temirkanov (left) and Leonidas Kavakos (right) can be heard live from Annecy right here, tomorrow

Free Kavakos? Why are they holding him?

OK, just kidding. But you can indeed watch and listen to the fabulous Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos for free on JDCMB tomorrow. We are live-streaming a concert from the Annecy Classic Festival, in a webcast shared exclusively with us by Medici.tv. Kavakos is playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto and Yuri Temirkanov conducts the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. The second half consists of something rather special that may surprise regular readers of JDCMB.

The performance starts at 21:00 French time, so in the UK it will begin at 8pm and in New York 3pm. Further west, I'm sure you can work it out for yourself.

Fingers crossed that I've got all the technology correctly set up...

Breaking: Decca signs chocolate violinist

News just in: Decca has signed up the Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos - on JDCMB long nicknamed "the chocolate violinist" (even though I am sure the luxury confectionary brand Leonidas is really nothing to do with him). It's a super choice: a mature, significant musician who has a style and sound of his own yet always puts musical integrity first.

Over the years I've loved every concert of his that I have attended - Tchaikovsky, Korngold and Stravinsky concerti among them, as well as startlingly wonderful Enescu and Schumann at the Wigmore Hall, countless delicacies in Verbier and a good few inspiring interviews. Kavakos has always struck me as one of those artists in whom all the synapses seem to work unimpeded: there's a direct flow from imagination to Strad to listener's ear. He's an unconventional player - he keeps his bowing elbow unusually relaxed, for one thing, and the sound is often gentle, refined, detailed. Inspirations, if I remember aright, include accounts and pictures of Joseph Joachim, plus the folk style of Kavakos's father's traditional Greek band. Also nice to see a major company signing an artist for substance ahead of photogenic concerns.

According to the press release, he'll be recording core repertoire: Beethoven sonatas, the Brahms concerto and the complete solo Bach.