April 2025
L to R: Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins, Rolf Gjelsten, Chris van der Zee at the March 22 Comfy Concert. Chris, we are proud to say, was also a student of ours back in the day. Being an outstanding violist doesn’t seem to be enough for him - he now is one of the busiest guys in Wellington, teaching math to secondary students by day, conducting a youth orchestra at the weekends, and in the evenings frequently performing with the NZ Symphony Orchestra. Not to mention his 3 kids! Respect!
Musings on Musical Performance, Tradition and Family
The Comfy Concerts series of benefit concerts kicked off with a wonderful experience for players and audience alike on March 22,
(those who wish, may read all about it! Review)
and now we are in rehearsal for the next one, which will take place on April 19. Our guest artists this time are three wonderful members of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra whom we’ve known since they were teenagers, who all got their first university degrees from Victoria University, studying both their solo instrument and lots of chamber music with us/the NZSQ, both at the University and at the Adam Chamber Music Summer School. Anna van der Zee was NZSQ second violin Douglas Beilman’s student and then returned to take part in the Graduate Quartet programme (Tasman Quartet); Nicholas Hancox learned with NZSQ violist Gillian Ansell and was in a Graduate Quartet as well (Antipodes Quartet), and Julia Joyce learned with me, later switching to viola when she studied in London. She was also a member of a string quartet (Puertas Quartet) which did some New Zealand tours a few years back.
Playing with these experienced, highly communicative and deeply intelligent artists is a revelation - I suppose akin to the obvious discovery that one’s child has grown up and become an equal adult, with whom one shares a common language and much history. It’s made me think about what makes us comfortable with people, and what it means to pass along a musical tradition. Learning an instrument and the complexity of chamber music playing is a long and multi-layered journey, and finding players with whom one shares expectations, sonic sensitivity and stylistic awareness is very special. It’s truly a feeling of family.
We are all a complex mixture of genetics, experience, and influences, and it brings up the question about where do our deepest musical values come from - In my case, a mixture of all the teachers I had in my life, from my first Suzuki experiences to the various teaches and coaches in my teens and twenties, culminating in the three decades of intense quartet work with my “three teachers” (as I liked to describe my colleagues) - in each case each of these interactions included influences they had all grown up with as well. How far does this all go back? My first teacher liked to tell me he was a teacher/student descendant of Joseph Joachim - others went back to Ysaÿe and de Bériot. Added to this it’s also becoming clear to me how much I learned from the wonderful students we were privileged to work with, and how that learning now continues as we work together as colleagues. It’s additionally interesting to think about what are the values that transcend the styles of the day - as we can hear from 100 year old recordings, in some ways we play very differently than did our forebears.
So what are these deepest musical values? Powerful communicative collaboration as a way of creating a whole greater than the sum, and as a way to convey the hopeful news that we human beings can indeed create beauty and meaning together. Staying open to ideas by others keeps us growing, and speaking through our instruments allows us to transcend the limitations of words. In all this we are inspired by the great art gifted to us by composers of the past as well as the present, from countries around the world and from right here. In a world so marked by conflict and zero-sum thinking, this is indeed an important message.
I’m also again marvelling at the fate that brought me into this field, where the deep connections we forge with our mentors, students and colleagues are rare and valuable. This is a world where we are all family who work together to bring great art to life - indeed a beautiful calling.
PS - it’s very apt that the charity that the proceeds of the concert go to is Arohanui Strings+, which as part of the Sistema movement teaches music for free to all comers with a policy of Radical Inclusion - making the joy of music accessible to all. I cherish my involvement with this visionary organisation. More on that another time.
Helene Pohl
January 2025
One of my favourite memories of a performance in a school was in a small town in the South Island a number of years ago. We were doing a game where student volunteers come to the front of the stage and hold hand-drawn posters depicting emotions, which they are to lift up when the music reminds them of the feeling in the drawing. A boy, perhaps 9 years old, with a beanie on and some sort of attitude that we couldn’t quite read put up his hand and came up front. Every time he lifted his poster to match the character of the music, his classmates all roared with approval. After the concert, we saw his teacher at the back, visibly moved. She told us this boy had never once put his hand up for anything in school, that this was the very first time. Hearing our music made him want to join in, and all the other kids were showing their support. It was a beautiful reminder of the power of music to reach kids that might lack confidence in other ways - and of the warmth that kids can show each other.
August 2024
In June of this year a beloved relative of mine died quite young and quite tragically of cancer, having only recently retired and looking forward to many more enjoyable years with his wife and family. His funeral happened to be between two concerts we had on our Canadian tour so Rolf and I didn’t think twice about making the trip to Germany to be there. We played at the funeral, and by his wife's request I brought my violin along to the cemetery after the service. It started to rain, but other relatives stepped up with big umbrellas to shield the violin. I began by playing the hymn from the service while family members each said their own goodbyes, stepping up to sprinkle earth and flower petals on the grave, and then I noticed that more and more mourners were coming to pay their own last respects, so I repeated the hymn a few times. As more and more people joined the line, I began to improvise on the hymn, then I couldn’t very well play for them but not for the next ones, so I just continued improvising… some a bit Irish, then a bit of Bach Chaconne, then the hymn again, then lots more that I don’t specifically remember. In the end I played non stop for about 30-40 minutes. The experience was unlike any performance I’ve ever given - not a performance as such, but rather a framing of the situation, a wish to express all the feelings that we were sharing, of loss, grieving, but also consolation, a moving of a relationship to another plane. My mind was at once quite full ("where am I in the phrase?” "Should I modulate now?" type things) and empty, just feeling with everyone, letting the music come out of my violin.
In this era of ubiquitous music, with everyone having access to all types of music in their pocket-computer, it was powerful to feel the shared nature of the experience, and that this is indeed why wordless music exists - to say things words cannot, and to bring us together in our shared humanity. It was a privilege to be the vehicle of this communication.
I hope to take this feeling into all of my concerts - particularly in some of the most spiritual moments in the music, to lift the musicians as well as our listeners up from whatever our current concerns are. Of course it’s delicious to know that our music speaks from a variety of vantage points - playful, dramatic, loving, dance-like, teasing, serious, and many more. But for those deep places in our soul, I’ll never forget what this experience taught me.