Girls with the golden touch

By WILLIAM DART

It was an out-of-town preview in the unlikely venue of a Papakura Methodist Church. We, the audience, were in the middle and suddenly four musicians were serenading us from each corner of the space. Violinist Alisha Hunt and cellist Victoria Simonsen were in front of us, violist Christine Bowie and leader Lara Hall behind, dealing out the shivery chords and exotic cantillations of John Psathas' Abisheka.

Goldfingers are a new quartet on the scene and Hall explains the choice of the name, with its 007 associations.

"We had to find something a little different when we got together for the Rotorua Lakeside concert in February. I suppose it was a bit of a reaction to Bond, the all-girl British quartet, but I like to think we're a little more serious about getting people more aware of just how much chamber music is out there."

The centrepiece of the concert is Arnold Bax's First String Quartet, a gorgeous hothouse flower of the Celtic revival and Goldfingers oblige us with a few musical samples before they play it - Bowie and Hunt's snatch of an Irish folksong is a lilting invitation.

"The Bax was unlike anything we'd ever done before," explains Hall. "It seemed simple on the surface, but when we got into it, it was suddenly very complicated, especially rhythmically. It's the sort of work where ideas fire off one another, bouncing from mood to mood - real string quartet music."

Kronos Quartet (culture heroes for more than one member of the group) have brought Bill Evans and Jimi Hendrix into the concert hall; Goldfingers come up with an arrangement of Miles Davis' All Blues. Alisha Hunt is in particularly funky form in her solo, and Hall was forced to DIY when her turn came: "There was nothing written out in the first violin part at this point, so I had to improvise. It was a matter of taking the plunge and just doing it."

The other tough one was easing into the minimalist serenity of Arvo Part's Fratres - not so easy when you have to retune your instrument. "The retuning brings about tonal changes. My G string is pitched lower and I just can't get the same loudness from it, which makes it difficult to balance with the D. It's a little like playing two very unlike instruments at the same time."

Hall, a former Suzuki kid, was bitten by the chamber-music bug when she started going to Chamber Music New Zealand concerts at age 10. She was positively blissed out at her first New Zealand String Quartet workshop ("it was inspirational to be just inundated and surrounded by chamber music") and is now thrilled Chamber Music New Zealand is considering a regional tour for the group next year. "It will be so good to be working in front of more informal, non-establishment audiences, whose only concern will be if the music is great."

This week Goldfingers give two concerts. Tonight's, in town, will be in the more formal surroundings of the University's Music Theatre ("we're still working out how we're going to make our entrance in the Psathas"); Saturday's, on Waiheke Island, will be something of a workshop. "We're hoping people will stay behind and discuss the music with us. I like to get right into the community and feed on the results."

* Goldfingers at the University Music Theatre, tonight at 7.30; and Waiheke Community Theatre, Saturday at 8pm.