String quartet who met on speed date

THE members of the Neruda String Quartet, the next musical group to play in the Northend Concerts series, met through musical matchmaking.

Comprising Adriana Bec (first violinist), Mark Leung (second violinist), Mina Mazur (viola) and Jim Goss (cello), the four were introduced to each other at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Adriana, 19, who is Romanian but grew up in San Antonio, Texas, says: “It’s actually very funny, at the academy they have something for incoming students, it’s an event called chamber music speed dating and it’s very much as it sounds.

“You have about a 15- to 20-minute slot with a certain group of people and then you play with them and then they bring in new people and then you play with those people.

“Then, by the end of the evening, you write a list of all the people that you enjoyed playing with and the people that you didn’t enjoy playing with and you send it to the organiser.

“It’s a lovely lady, her name is Mariah Johnston and she’s an incredible violinist and so she organises it.

“I don’t think that we probably would have chosen to play with this formation, but it’s really turned out to be probably one of the best things in my life right now. We just enjoy playing together so much and we have a really great connection and it has just been a very unexpected but wonderful thing.”

Adriana started playing violin age four. “I started the piano at two and then switched to violin at four because I wanted something that I was able to actually play and it was kind of my size. I’ve gone professional during my career and then I came to the Royal Academy of Music on a scholarship last year.”

In January, the quartet was invited to represent the academy at an international orchestral symposium at the Tianjin Juilliard School in Tianjin, near Beijing.

“What that entailed was playing in an orchestra comprised of the top three to four players from the top conservatoires around the world.

“We gave two concerts, one was at Juilliard Tianjin and then one was at the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing, which is called the Egg. It’s absolutely fantastic, it has a lake around it and the gardens are incredible.

“The one problem was that we ended up having a visa issue for our second violinist Mark and Jim, our cellist, and so they actually weren’t able to come. Luckily Mina, our violist, and I were still able to go and Mark and Jim were super understanding.”

For the Northend Concert, the quartet will play Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 6 in Bb major Op. 18 and Dvorak’s String Quartet No. 13 in G major Op. 106.

“We actually started the Dvorak a little bit earlier this year. I think it’s one of my favourite quartets from his whole cycle. It was the first one that he wrote post his two-year residency in America. It’s really incredible, the second movement for me personally in a 21st century mindset, the second movement sounds like a movie soundtrack for me.

“Beethoven’s Opus 18 is a classic quartet. It was his homage to Haydn and Mozart. As the quartet goes along, the first movement is very Haydnesque, but once you get to the last movement, you really start to see some of later Beethoven, you can see the transition between Haydn and where Beethoven will end up going.” Phil Cashian, head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music, founded the series. He says: “Set up with some money generously donated through crowdfunding, Northend Concerts has now put on 20 concerts since May 2022.

“The Neruda Quartet concert next month will be the fourth string quartet to visit, an ensemble that seems to be the most popular with audiences.”

l Northend Concerts present “A Study in Scarlet” at Northend village hall on Sunday, October 26 at 3pm. Tickets cost £20. For more information, visit northendconcerts.co.uk