American artist Blue Violin, aka Christopher Vuk, has rediscovered the place where he fits best.
For the past two years, Vuk has been touring his show Thunderstruck around the world. A homage to the greatest rock n’ roll artists of all time, his genre-bending show takes iconic classic rock tunes and translates them onto solo electric violin.
Using loop pedals to accompany his own blistering solos on a candlelit stage, Vuk brings the rock and classical music worlds together in an electric, high-energy performance.
But for a long time, Vuk didn’t perform at all.
“I grew up in Northeastern Iowa and started playing when I was six years old,” Vuk said.
“I went to school for classical violin in Boston, Massachusetts and then when I was 20 I transferred to Berklee College of Music, and that’s really when I started playing alternative styles of music: jazz, rock, a lot of world music.
“Then I started touring with a group called The Boston String Quartet. I toured with them for about a decade, and we worked with Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, John Mayer, Riverdance, and many others. And that’s when we started really getting to perform this great, great music.
“That was back in the mid-2000s, and there weren’t many string players playing rock and roll music, so we were kind of pioneers in that. Then I had kids, got married and stepped away from music for quite some time.”
Vuk’s story of moving away from music into business and then back again to his passion is something he talks about to audiences, but the upshot is that music is where he finds joy..
“I really find a lot of enjoyment in making people smile, presenting something new and unique,” he said.
“It’s always exciting for me to hear people say, wow, I had no idea that’s what this was going to be like, it was amazing.
“And inspiring kids…I used to have a music school. I worked with tens of thousands of kids, introducing them to rock and roll or jazz on the violin or cello. And that’s something that I take a lot of joy in.”
Blue Violin is at Geelong West Town Hall on Friday 6 March. Visit blue-violin.com/thunderstruck for tickets.
