Dear friends,

In our normal lives, we have moments where we realise that we have developed into one more level of human being. In our quartet life (we are only 9 months old), we also have moments like this. Today, we will tell you two stories.

THE BEACH TRIP

On Thursday, Iona, Eriol, Inis Oírr and Jonathan were forced to go to the beach with the other groups despite begging Jonathan T to rehearse all day. As soon as they arrived at the beach, the brave Sylva Winds ran into the cold water immediately; the quiet and sensible Asakas wandered the edge of the sea, silently wishing that they were playing scales in thirds and fifths together. But after 5 minutes, the sharp fresh wind that held the frisbee hostage, slapped poor Inis Oírr in the face and forced a wild motive into her mind. Inis Oírr, the usually very sensible violist, dashed into the water until she was fully submerged despite not being able to swim. She suddenly felt this sense of freedom that only came with good phrasing and intonation, and never wanted to leave the sea again.

2 hours and a lot of being-chased-by-Jonathan-in-the-sea later, Inis Oírr was finally caught and dragged out of the water by a fuming Jonathan. Jonathan grabbed his violist, screaming and refusing to cooperate, by the armpits, and began to drag her out of the sea.

Meanwhile, Eriol, with her keen eyes and quick instincts, from the other side of the beach, saw this image of her cellist struggling to save the poor drowning violist. She handed the expensive camera to Drake, exclaiming ‘DRAKE, HOLD THIS. Inis Oírr needs my help!’. Eriol ran as fast as she could towards her troubled colleagues..

As she approached her, she discovered that Iona was standing a few metres from this scene, watching disapprovingly with her arms crossed and eyebrows crossed. ‘Iona, what’s going on!’ Exclaimed Eriol – and then she noticed, this was the actual scene:

Jonathan: ‘Inis Oírr, it’s time to go home, YOU’VE BEEN IN THE SEA FOR 2 HOURS.’

Inis Oírr: ‘NONONONONONO FIVE MORE MINUTES.’

Eriol’s jaw dropped in disbelief and disappointment: her hero moment was taken away from her as she realised that Inis Oírr was not actually drowning, unfortunately. The two violinists watched sceptically as their ridiculous lower strings thrashed about in the sea screaming at each other.

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THE BANANA STORY

So this story was before our second concert on Coll (of some Mendelssohn that you would never want to miss) We did some photo shooting by our talented Inis Oírr near the sea, after that everyone just got exhausted, sleepy and hungry. Iona and Jonathan went back to their beds to take a nap. Me and Inis Oírr, as usual, were talking rubbish. Oh actually we did a bit string crossing practice, you know Mendelssohn and middle parts, haha.

It happened at the time when I got starving. A banana appeared in my vision, it was the last one in the room! I ran towards it, then caught it, oh, it belonged to me forever now…I peeled this golden fruit, sent it (almost) into my mouth. However I was interrupted by Inis Oírr, she was nearly shouting at me: Hey, Iona can’t function without a banana (fun fact x1) before concerts!

I was shocked a bit, but I did remember that. Yes, I’m a strong second violin that is able to live my life without bananas. Therefore, I tried to make the banana look like what it used to be like and got some pizza instead. Wait, to be honest what I want to say is I will do anything to keep Iona running (and of course, for Jonathan and Inis Oírr) Bananas are such small deal, but nothing’s more important than making music! 

The story is not finished yet: Iona woke up and told us she bought a bunch of bananas and we can all share them because she knew this would happen. I want to shout out to every colleagues (including sleeping Jonathan): It’s good to be with you.

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So, we wanted to tell these two stories because every rehearsal, we are noticing more and more moments of trust and some minutes where we discover each other, but sometimes you can’t beat the milestones that beaches and bananas will teach you.

– Inis Oírr and Eriol, Asaka Quartet

Good evening from the Asakas!

As if sharing a room with two WIND players isn’t stressful enough, we decided to challenge the Winds last night to an intense match of pool; some luck, many tears and a lot of cat fighting later, the unexpected result was out…

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Asakas were having a good start at the beginning of the game— Thanks to Jonathan’s unique sensibility and instinct of hitting the ball at the right point. Which made the thing even better was his (brief) luck, it brought the scene that we were only able to see in some legendary pool game videos: he planned to hit the white ball to the wall and expected it coming back to hit one of the yellow balls (we’re team yellow), but after the yellow ball going into the hole successfully, the white ball kept reflecting and hit another yellow ball, then it rushed into another hole as well so smoothly! I was amazed heavily that even forgot to keep an eye on my dear colleague Iona’s Scottish folk music show case. Unfortunately the situation took a turn for the worse after me and Inis Oírr’s participation — seemed we were better at driving our quartet (Haha it is said the inner voices are the bosses of quartet). Jonathan tried his best to turn the tide, however we had to admit as a team, Sylva Winds were more damn stronger (in pool game!).
Well, It was still such enjoyable time! Thank you, Sylva Winds!

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Meanwhile, here’s Iona having the time of her life learning how to play the violin (she’s only just done her Grade 1 so well done Iona), and if anyone looks a bit red in the photos, please blame the shockingly affordable and flavourful alcohol that we Londoners can’t get enough of.

Goodnight!

– Inis Oírr and Eriol, Asaka Quartet

We have had fantastic coachings from Tim Brown (and a surprise coaching from Jonathan Tunnell) and we are really looking forward to performing all our repertoire in the 3 concerts during the week.

(Photos taken by the talented Inis Oírr Asano)

Tomorrow will be the last day of rehearsals before the concerts begin, and we can’t wait!

It’s been a busy time for the Ferrante Quartet as we were all performing solo recitals the week before we came to Coll. Rosie and Ellie actually had recitals the night before we set out! Due to the many rail strikes in London, our travel plans had to change and Susie and Maris found themselves on a 12 hour coach.

There were quite a few times we weren’t sure that the whole group would make it to the island! But we managed to meet in Oban where we spent a few short hours in a hostel before heading off in the early morning light to catch the ferry.

It was a long journey from London, but it was all worth it when we stepped foot onto the Isle of Coll and took in the scenic vista and the clean air. It’s been such a gift to get out of the bustle of the city and into the tranquility of this setting where we have the space to dedicate ourselves completely to our artistry. Surrounded by the countryside and fresh air, we are loving our first few days on the Isle of Coll. We’re staying all together in a lovely bunkhouse and rehearsing and having coaching in the An Cridhe community centre which has the hall where we’re going to be performing in later in the week. Every window has the most stunning views and the light and weather changes every minute!

Having formed recently, getting time to dedicate to playing together and growing as a quartet, away from our other student- and working- commitments, has been invaluable. With inspiring tutors to guide us through Quartet repertoire, the progress we have felt within our group, both individually and collectively has been amazing!

The music tutors have helped us to listen and work together, thinking about our collective musical ideas and intentions with phrasing. This, along with a love and enthusiasm for the repertoire has inspired us to continue working in this way as much as possible when we return back to London.

We have already learned so much about each other both personally and musically, and we can’t wait to show off our progress in the upcoming concerts.

#Coll-age #iloveColl #Coll-d #Coll-aboration #musi-Coll

We’re the Asaka Quartet, from London, and we’re so excited to be here on the Isle of Coll!

It took us a whole day to get to Oban which the ferry to Coll departed from, on the next day after the  RAM Mahler 3 project led by our first violinist Iona! We spent a night there, woke up at 4.30 am in the next morning, with exhausting brains, painful butts and passion, we caught the ferry successfully. So here we are, sitting in the cottage on this lovely island, discussing our rehearsal, chatting about music making, oh, of course, cannot do anything without mario cart.

We absolutely love Scotland, not only because of the fresh tap water, also the mild breeze (as you can see in the picture we quite enjoyed that) We also enjoy life on the island very much. According to our new friend Jonathan Tunnell, islands like this are like a parallel worlds to the mainland. It has its ‘Coll time’. To be honest, I’m not able to remember what day is it today if I didn’t get the schedule. Hence I can’t imagine a better place to do a quartet course than Coll. All the trifles in hustle-bustle London are away from us. They don’t disappear, but at least we get a perfect place to get rid of them and just concentrate on our beloved repertoires.

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It’s always been our quartet dream to have a whole week to ourselves where we can dedicate all energy to our playing. I’ve read about musicians who breathe and eat music, and I always wondered if I was supposed to be like that automatically to become a musician, but maybe all we needed was to breathe some air that wasn’t the toxic fumes of London’s most heavily polluted Marylebone Road. I love that here, we can talk about the imaginary ‘wedding scene’ in the slow movement of one of our pieces whilst eating amazing fish sandwiches and soup until we’re full and not until we have to go to our next classes. I love that everyone is so kind and warm and as happy as we are. For now, I have no desire to go back to London, but maybe after 10 days of no bubble tea and noodles, I might go crazy…

– Inis Oírr and Eriol, Asaka Quartet