In an Instagram post celebrating the Friday 21 April release date for the film, Ronald dedicated a post to Kelvin writing, “I couldn’t have wished for a better student. Instagram / studied at both the Manhattan School of Music, and Paris Conservatoire, and played with a variety of acclaimed orchestras including Chineke! and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Ronald was evidently the perfect teacher to help Kelvin bring Chevalier to life on screen. Read more: 10 Black composers who changed the course of classical music history The piece took over a month to be delivered, but as soon as it arrived, I started learning it because I liked the music so much!” “I was going through any website I could find on Google, and when I finally found a copy of the piece, it was in China. “I couldn’t find it anywhere!”, Ronald recalled. For me, that was a very virtuosic thing to hear in that time period.”Īfter the concert, Ronald wanted to find the music so he could learn to play the concerto, but struggled to find the piece. “One thing that really shocked me about his music is that he would jump all over the strings in various passages, so he would start on the highest string of the violin, and then jump all the way down to the lowest. “I heard a performance of Chevalier’s Ninth violin concerto in G minor. “It was really late in my career,” Ronald explained. What’s so special about Chevalier’s music?ĭespite being a violinist for the majority of his life, Ronald only first heard of the 18th-century composer in 2017. Read more: Is Austin Butler really singing and playing guitar in ‘Elvis’ movie? While Ronald didn’t get cast in the role (as he was apparently ‘too funny’), less than 20 years later, he would have the opportunity to work with the Harrison family again. In the panel auditioning the children for the role of young Ray, was Kelvin Harrison Sr, Kelvin’s father. When Ronald was younger, he was a child actor, and at one point during his childhood auditioned for the 2004 Ray Charles movie, Ray. Ronald Long recording violin solos for ‘Chevalier’ at Abbey Road Studios.ĭespite having never met before their lessons, Ronald and Kelvin shared an unlikely connection, in Kelvin’s father. Read more: Jenna Ortega learned to play Bach cello suites for hit Netflix series ‘Wednesday’ “Kelvin’s a very very eager person and he wanted to learn things very quickly, but before we moved on to harder things I said, ‘just give me two weeks, and all we’re going to do is play slow open strings, to get that feeling of the bow”.Īs the pair practised, Ronald said their lessons would go on for up to three or four hours at a time, and the first two of those would be focused on playing slow scales. “He actually grasped it very quickly,” Ronald admitted, smiling. Using beginner tricks like encouraging Kelvin to think of ‘the rabbit biting the carrot’ when adjusting his bow grip, and imaging he had a tennis ball under his left hand to ensure a lifted position on the strings, Ronald was able to teach the actor how to give off the presence of an acclaimed maestro. “The first thing I noticed with Kelvin was how he was gripping the bow, and so I thought the least I can do is teach him the proper technique,” Long added. How to teach an actor to play a musical instrument for a film Ronald Long (left) and Kelvin Harrison Jr. “We only had two months how are we going to learn all this in time?” “To teach him how to play all these concertos, and really difficult pieces in a very, very short amount of time. “You can imagine how daunting that was,” Ronald told Classic FM. Ronald, who was already on set anyway, in costume and wig, was asked instead to be Kelvin’s teacher. But instead of face-swapping the two young creatives, the director decided instead he wanted Kelvin to be the one playing the violin, to make the performance as “natural as possible”.
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