Niels Lan Doky and Gino Vannelli play at the Pope's Christmas concert which is broadcast to millions of TV viewers. - Translation of article in Extrabladet, National Newspaper, December 2000
The Danish pianist and composer Niels Lan Doky has to watch his steps when he goes stage with the Italian superstar Gino Vannelli as part of Pope John Paul II's annual Christmas concert. The concert - rich in tradition - is one of the highlights within the Roman Catholic Church in terms of media coverage as the concert is transmitted directly via satellite to a large part of the world. "It is a very big concert and at the moment it all seems unreal. It makes my head swim just thinking about it and obviously I am very flattered that I have been invited to participate", says Niels Lan Doky on his mobile phone speaking from the airport in Zurich on his way to Rome. At the concert Niels Lan Doky will be in the company of superstars like Dionne Warwick, Randy Crawford and Dee Dee Bridgewater. "Gino Vannelli and I are going to play a track from my new album which will be released shortly. It is a ballad with a huge symphony orchestra and it is not just a matter playing correctly. It is not like fusion jazz where it makes no difference if you hit one wrong key once in a while", says Niels Lan Doky who made a name for himself among the best modern jazz pianists when he in the 1980s broke though as an prominent representative of the well-dressed and trendy generation of jazz musicians in suits.
Audience and Galla
The track that Doky and Vannelli are going to play is called "Parole Per Mio Padre" and it is written by Gino Vannelli. "The song is about love and humanity and therefore it suits perfectly the spirit of Christmas. Gino wrote the song to his late father and that is something that could be transmitted to a wider church interpretation", says Niels Lan Doky, who has been granted audience with the Pope today together with his wife and their ten-year-old twins Ken and Maj. After the concert the family has been invited to a gala dinner with Prince Albert of Monaco. But it is probably the meeting with the Head of the Church that is the highlight of the trip. "We are very excited about meeting a person who has such an enormous influence in the world. The Pope is supposed to have a very strong charisma, and I am very proud that my children have been granted audience with him", says Niels Lan Doky.
Zen Music
The song that he and Gino Vannelli are going to play for the Pope is included on Niels Lan Doky's next album, Haitek Haiku, which is going to be released in February. He has found inspiration to the album in the Eastern Zen-philosophies and the Japanese Haiku-poetry. The fact that two philosophies collide during the concert does not concern him. "Zen is probably a bit too abstract and liberal for the Roman Catholic Church but on the other hand I think that Catholicism forms the basis for many of the spiritual values we find in Zen. I certainly find it very natural to participate in the Catholic Christmas concert", he says. "On Haitek Haiku I work with a wide variety of pop, classical, jazz, world and electronic music. I have tried to transfer the idea of globalisation to the music. The boarders between countries and the cultural differences will slowly brake down and people will have more and more information at their disposal. We will become citizens of the world", says Niels Lan Doky who has a Danish mother, a Vietnamese father with Chinese roots and has lived in France for a number years. The Pope's Christmas concert will be broadcast directly on the Italian TV-station Rai Uno and will later on be offered to the national TV-station in various countries.