By Monica Chard
Performing arts has been signifi-cantly hit during the Covid crisis. The double whammy is that in addition to loss of income, per-formers have been thwarted in doing what they love – namely playing for an audience. So thank goodness for both modern day tech and ingenuity and determina-tion!
Molesey based single mum Sarah Mallock, renowned electric violin-ist (Sarahviolin.com) was used to performing at the highest level with some of the best artists, from Madonna, Adele and Rod Stewart to Andrea Bocelli and countless others. But life this year has been somewhat different. So during Lockdown One she started perfor-mances from her living room. Every evening at 6.30pm she would play live to a Facebook audience from her garden, swings and football nets in the background! The sessions became known as the Sundown-er Sessions and gained a huge following. Peo-ple would pour themselves a glass of some-thing lovely, tune in and listen to a live per-formance. Sarah did everything from Beetho-ven and Mozart to Led Zeppelin and Spring-steen, with a bit of House and jazz thrown in for good measure. She kept this up for 80 nights and grew an audience of up to 5000 from around the world.
As lockdown was slightly relaxed, Sarah was joined (socially distanced) by her collabora-tor, friend, and duo partner: Shepperton based violinist Lisa Rollin on several of the ses-sions, adding another dynamic to the perfor-mances. They also had the time to work on writing and arranging original tracks. The collaboration has resulted in an album of the best tracks which is being released on January 15th 2021. There will be 7 single tracks and 5 duo’s. The album is a diary of lockdown, when two enterprising ladies used their tal-ents to help keep the spirits of the community up. For details on how to get your copy of the Sundowner Sessions go to either Lisa’s com-pany website: www.redhotstrings.com or to www.sarahviolin.com.
During the festive period the duo also decided to stream their own Christmas event. Set in a sumptuous living room, festively decorated, and with the performers in evening dress to make the event extra special, their online Christmas concert was a ticketed event.
It goes to show how we learn to adapt. Well done ladies and thank you for finding a way to ease the pain of lockdown. Good luck with the album.