For those of you who live in Southsea it is unlikely you haven’t heard of Southsea Fest – a one day Southsea-based music festival spread across numerous Albert Road venues, and a feat of organisation of tens of bands from the UK.
The fest is to showcase local talent, old and new.
Last year, we were invited to play at the Magic Bean Cafe on Albert Road as part of the “chill out” area of the fest. Are you familiar with the Magic Bean Cafe? If you are, you will know that it is a cozy, intimate cafe that serves great cakes and coffee.
We soon realised there would be no space for a full quartet AND an audience. As much as we love playing to ourselves, we thought perhaps we’d better reduce down to a duet for this occasion so that an audience could be in attendance.
Amy and Anna took to the helm and played some violin duets for the small, but appreciative audience in the afternoon. People sat and enjoyed their coffees while we played some short, simple violin duets that went down well!
Of course, we think a full string quartet is best sound-wise, but it is also nice to do a duet, or a trio from time to time. This offers a different challenge to us of how to convey a piece of music with just two instruments instead of four.
Ruth and Sophie play together as a duo frequently, on viola and cello, and have mastered the art of filling in the gaps that the other instruments would normally play. A good job that Ruth is a genius at double stopping! (Playing 2 notes at once!)