Quartet comes to life ...

These last few weeks have been such an exciting time for all of us involved in the Quartet of Peace initiative ... suddenly the pieces of wood have come to life, there are faces behind the numerous emails from around the world and our identity as a Quartet of Peace has been established!

It was the usual frantic rush to get the cello ready in time and after working for three days with very little sleep. It was completed at 6.00 pm on the monday exactly one hour before our first rehearsal! 


Although it is rather stressful working this way it somehow always lends itself to the incredible focused concentration of fitting a bridge and soundpost which I really love doing ... those micro millimeter adjustments of fitting a soundpost which I do almost entirely by feel as one very gently flexes the back and front apart, intuitively establishing the best position.

The Italian name for the soundpost is ‘anima’ which means ‘the soul’ and this is certainly true!  The soundpost is a small spruce dowel inside the instrument under the treble end of the bridge, spanning the space between the top and back plates and held in place by friction.
Quite incredible how such an small piece of wood is the most important part of the violin!

The first rehearsal and the coming together of instruments for the first time was on monday the 11th of October at Suzanne and Peter Marten's house. David Juritz had literally just flown in from London a couple of hours before and Gareth Lubbe from Germany made up this inaugural group of musicians. There was such excitement in the air and for me hearing those first few notes played as an ensemble was such a moving experience and the fulfillment of a long held vision and dream!

A couple days later there was a rehearsal at the Hout Bay Music Project which was three hours long giving the children there an opportunity of experiencing what goes into string quartet playing. One of the highlights of the rehearsal was having the kids clapping, keeping the time for some incredibly difficult interwoven rhythms.

We were all amazed at the sense joy that the musicians shared when playing together and that really came through at the concerts. 

We do have some exciting news in that there will be three additional musicians joining the group; two of them are young black South Africans from Soweto. I will elaborate more in my next blog which will also be about the concerts with some video footage ... but for now the video below is of the first few rehearsals - please forgive me for the shaky footage ... after hardly having any sleep for about two weeks whilst getting everything ready, I was not quite myself during these recordings!

The video below is best viewed in HD and full screen. For email subscribers the video can viewed by clicking here: Quartet comes to life