AMERICAN PIANIST RETRACES GRANDMOTHER'S STEPS IN LONDON

In 1900, Nina Hortense Clinton traveled from Ohio to the U.K. as a nineteen-year-old soprano with a group of "Fisk Jubilee Singers" under director Frederick Loudin. Their travels included tours of Ireland, Scotland, and Great Britain. She and the group were still in London in 1902 where they witnessed the coronation of King Edward VII.

Clinton's grandfather, James Beverly Lett, was a founder of the Lett Settlement near Zanesville, Ohio. His daughter, Celia Lett married Martin H. Clinton, an ice cream salesman. Nina was their only daughter. After her return from Europe, she eventually married Dr. Henry Floyd Gamble of Charleston, West Virginia. Their daughter, Anne Lucille Gamble, was also a pianist and served on the piano faculty at Fisk University, where she met and married Matthew Washington Kennedy, pianist and director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Their daughter Nina was a child prodigy, presenting her first complete piano recital at age nine, and appearing as piano soloist with the Nashville Symphony - before an audience of over four thousand - at age thirteen.

One hundred and nineteen years after Nina Clinton's arrival in London, her granddaughter returned to the British capital to revisit her grandmother's experience. The New York Times called Kennedy "a fine pianist," and described her playing as being "sensuous and piquant" in the review of her New York Debut Recital at Lincoln Center. A Juilliard graduate, she is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Fellowship. Kennedy was presented in recital in London at the Warwick Arts Trust and at the BBC. Thirty years later she is the host of her own television talk-show The Noshing with Nina Show, an INFEMNITY Production, and has filmed part of her visit for the show which is broadcast nationally in the U.S.

Chanteuse Kimberly Nichole, hostess and emcee at London's The Box, was recently a guest on The Noshing with Nina Show. Her performance of "House of the Rising Sun" on NBC's The Voice received worldwide acclaim.

Kennedy was also in London to promote the release of her new single titled "Blue White and Red," featuring American rapper Nejma Nefertiti. Her classical piano performance over Hip hop, or, "Trap" beats evolved into what is called classical Trap, or "Trapsical." "Blue White and Red" is available on SoundCloud.

Also, Kennedy's voice can be heard on the new single "It's World Pride," which was released in coordination with World Pride 2019 in New York City. Its world premiere took place at the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street, where Pride began with the Stonewall rebellion in 1969.

Nina Kennedy's first book of memoirs titled Practicing for Love: A Memoir is scheduled to be released this fall.

For more information, please visit www.noshwithnina.tv.