"It stuck very naturally." | An Interview with Antipodes Quartet

New Zealand String Quartet
6 days ago
10 min read

Updated: 6 days ago

Antipodes Quartet is the ensemble of emerging and early-career musicians taking part in the 2025 Fellowship Programme, facilitated and mentored by New Zealand String Quartet, Chamber Music New Zealand and Adam Chamber Music Festival. They each auditioned for the opportunity as individuals and were brought together by the process to form a brand-new string quartet. Across the year-long programme they are receiving not just performance mentorship, but also mentoring focussed on marketing, fundraising, personal branding and other skills necessary for a sustainable, well-rounded career in the arts. Part of this process was the opportunity to choose their own name, Antipodes Quartet, establish their own brand and begin carving out their own space within the Aotearoa classical music industry.

Lavinnia Rae, Eden Annesley, Tal Amoore and Mana Waiariki

They’re now well into the Fellowship programme, having attended the Adam Summer School in February and begun work setting up a number of concerts for themselves. Now, they’re hard at work preparing for a national tour presented by Chamber Music New Zealand, as well as a few concerts alongside the New Zealand String Quartet. We caught up with the Quartet to find out where they’ve been, where they are and where they’re going.

1. How did you come across this Fellowship opportunity and what made you apply for it

Eden: I originally attended the Adam Summer School in 2023, and played the Mendelssohn Quartet with Mana, and had an amazing week of creating chamber music! New Zealand seemed like a cool little music community and I thought it was amazing how much access students had to a professional string quartet. Last year, whilst living in Japan and contemplating my next steps after graduation, I saw an email from the NZSQ about this fellowship program, and at the very last minute submitted a recording. An interview, many flights and much admin later, I moved to Pōneke to fully benefit from the Fellowship and have been blessed to connect with my amazing Antipodes Quartet friends and the NZSQ whānau. Also! I’ve always wanted to work in a string quartet, so much that I even wrote this little story about one when I was in high-school. It seems the stars have aligned because we will be performing the Ravel on our tour, which is what the novella is based on.

2. What were those early days of the Fellowship programme like? When you were coming together for the first time both right before and at the Adam Summer School.

Antipodes Quartet about to perform at the 2025 Adam Chamber Music Festival Summer Gala

Mana: It was so exciting! I had been playing in a string quartet with Tal regularly since 2019 and Eden once at the Adam Summer School in 2023. I once saw Lavinnia sit principal cello at an Auckland Youth Orchestra rehearsal years ago and I never saw her again, until this year! We were (and still sometimes) communicating across three different time zones so figuring out our repertoire and general comms can get really difficult, but the excitement of meeting and eventually playing together pushed us through! I think we gelled together really nicely at the Summer School. I think we artistically challenged each other and there was an insane amount of growth that I saw individually and also as a group! It was really sad to say goodbye as we all ventured back across three time zones.

3. How did you choose the name ‘Antipodes Quartet’? What is its significance to you all?

Mana: This was surprisingly not our biggest discussion that we’ve had as a quartet (picking rep for our tour caused a big ruckus). Tal originally brought up the name Antipodes/ Antipodean and we all kind of laughed and said “we would be mistaken by the water and skincare company!” (still open to that sponsorship though lol)

Tal: I’d been sitting on the name Antipodes for a little while, I loved how it spoke to our place in the world. We wanted something that would reflect our identity, and still leave room for evolution. The skincare brand jokes aside, it stuck very naturally.

4. How do you balance your individual voices with the need for cohesion within the quartet? How do you work together and complement each other?

Lavinnia: It feels a bit like balancing on a block of ice sometimes. It can take some time to find your feet and learn how everyone is as an individual, and how they best work with other people. We have had several open conversations about our priorities, what we want from each other, and we try to have regular check-ins as a group. We strive to have open and honest communication, which is important in any close relationship. I feel this is one of the healthiest groups I have been in, so I am really proud of us for this.

Tal: For me, what makes chamber music so powerful is the individuality of the voices. It thrives on what each person brings to the table — their instincts, their sound, their way of shaping a phrase. It’s not about always agreeing, but about listening, responding, and finding something honest in the interaction. That kind of dynamic feels very human, and it’s what I love most about playing in a quartet.

5. If you could have any musician, living or dead, from any music genre, play with the Antipodes Quartet for a day, who would it be and why? What would you play with them?

Eden: I would love to play with Freddie Mercury and help co-compose some of Queen’s hits! Plus it would be amazing to go on tour and bring a little quartet flavour to the rock genre.

Lavinnia: I am so ready for this question. One of my absolute favourite chamber works is Schubert’s Cello Quintet in C Major. I think that Laura van der Heijden would be a really fun energy to add to the group. We met many years ago when she performed as a soloist with the NZSO National Youth Orchestra. We sight read the quintet with James Bush during a coaching for Adam Summer School in February, and he could tell how excited I was to be playing through it. I’ve been saving this piece to perform for years — just waiting for the right moment!

Mana: Recently, I’ve been listening to a lot of Jazz fusion music and I was delighted when I found out that Quatuor Ébène had released ‘Milestones. The Jazz Album’ and I would love to talk to them about their process as Classically trained musicians producing a Jazz album and their thought process when it comes to improvising and how to wrap their Classical brain around that- maybe even having a jam! As for a musician to join AQ for a day, I would love for us to play a Piano Quintet with Yuja Wang, and then I would ask Rachmaninoff to write us one.

6. Can you tell us a bit about how you first started playing your instrument?

Mana: I’ve always wanted to play the violin, ever since I was 3 years old! What planted the seed was this Japanese Anime show I used to watch as a kid, and one of the main characters played violin (she was supposed to be very bad at playing the violin so I’m not sure how THAT performance led me to want to play the violin). I had to beg my parents to get me violin lessons for literally half my life, so finally at 7 years old, I started learning through the Suzuki method with Auckland based teachers Simon Griffiths and Stacey Shuck.

Lavinnia: It’s a bit of a silly little story. I’m the youngest of three sisters, and my two elder sisters both began playing violin, and piano. My parents collectively decided that I would be paired with a bigger string instrument since I was taller than my sisters, when they were the same age. Following on from this, one of my favourite facts to tell anyone interested is where my instrument is from, and how it fits into my family. My beautiful Italian cello (kindly gifted by my dad) was custom made by Marcello Villa in Cremona, and dad commissioned two violins by the same maker as gifts for my sisters. They are all made of wood from the same tree, so they are quite literally family tree instruments.

Tal: The viola came to me! (kind of) I’d played violin for maybe just under a year in high school, and part of the deal with our school orchestra was if we played violin, we had to do a year of mandatory viola service. The rest really is history and I haven’t looked back since.

7. What part of your tour with CMNZ are you looking forward to the most?

Mana: I am the only quartet member who has never been to Queenstown! So I am really looking forward to our Cromwell concert and driving through all the beautiful South Island scenery. Both my parents worked in the tourism industry so I spent a lot of my childhood touring the North Island with them so I’m excited to drive Eden around to all the places the Lord of the Rings were filmed.

Eden: I’m excited to make music in new communities, share our knowledge and connect with people! It will also be awesome to spend time on the road with Antipodes and have the full ‘band’ experience. Plus all the fun little cafes and bakeries we can sample amidst our busy touring schedule!

Lavinnia: I am most looking forward to performing Langsamer Satz by Webern. It’s been on my repertoire waitlist since 2019! Thankfully it didn’t take much to convince the quartet to say “yes” when deciding our tour programme, after everyone listened to a recording of it. I hope that the audience gets swept up in the lush melodies and harmonies, and that they can allow themselves to reflect on past memories, or a great love they can think of fondly. I have probably watched Leonkoro Quartet’s performance on YouTube almost 50 times this year. It is so deeply moving, and I can physically feel the raw emotion Webern is expressing through this work. I tear up just practising my part!

Tal: I am so excited to talk with audiences, hearing how the music landed for them, what they noticed or felt. We’re playing a diverse programme so I'm excited to see which pieces resonate most and in what ways. Other than that, I do have a running list of cafes to stop along our route….

8. Beyond your technical abilities, what do you hope audiences will take away from performances on your tour with CMNZ?

Lavinnia: Overall, for the untrained or first time listener, I hope that our carefully curated programme inspires them to watch more classical music concerts, or spark an interest in learning more about the niche art form.

Tal: I hope the audience feel invited in, like they’ve been welcomed into a conversation. Our goal is to make it feel more like a shared human experience. If someone walks away feeling more connected, to us, the music or to themselves, thats a success.

9. What’s keeping you all busy outside of Antipodes Quartet?

Mana: Holy moly. I’m currently studying full time at NZSM finishing my last trimester of my Bachelor of Music with Honours and that has been a handful to juggle alongside my part time job at the NZSO as the Education and Community Engagement Coordinator, and also being a freelance musician playing with Orchestra Wellington and also some non-classical gigs promoting cross-genre collaborations, particularly with the Jazz musicians of Pōneke. I love playing and going to gigs around Wellington, supporting local artists and sharing their craft inspires me to become a better artist too. I don’t think I’ve sat still since 2020 but I wouldn’t have my life any other way!

Lavinnia: A lot of other music! I am at a later stage of my career than my friends/colleagues in AQ, so I have been auditioning for full time positions whilst freelancing in London, and New Zealand. Recently I have been performing in the NZSO, will be performing in the NZSQ, and am yet to commence my trial with the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast. I will also be joining forces with Monique Lapins, and Tal in a string trio, for the next The Racket Lounge: Tandem session on the 13th of August. If you’re free, please come along!

Other than that I’m always searching for new coffee and matcha places, clothes shopping, and have started a pocket sketchbook. Knitting is on pause until after our tour as it’s too much for my hands to handle on top of 40 hours of practise a day!

10. What do the next five to ten years look like for each of you as individual musicians?

Lavinnia: Ideally settled into a salaried position, with a nice balance of chamber music and orchestral work. New Zealand definitely holds a special place in my heart... Antipodes this year has really reminded myself of my love and passion for chamber music, and I feel I owe a lot of that to Tal and how infectious his love for string quartet is. Honestly about 70% of our conversation is about music! AQ has also been great practise for being a guest artist with the NZSQ this week.

Mana: My future constantly changes due to incredible opportunities that arise when I least expect it. I don’t think I would be able to live a day without thinking about chamber music so ideally, I would love to play IN the group, but it would also be fulfilling to work behind the scenes for a chamber group. I could be the MANAger! A salaried position also would be lovely. But any job that would allow me to travel the world through music is my absolute dream.

Eden: I would love to freelance between different music ensembles, continue my work with my own ensembles like Duo Aki and also work to create music making and cultural connection between communities. Apart from my love of music, I love learning languages and using both language and music to break down barriers. This is something I realised during my time living in Japan as a New Colombo Plan scholar. String quartets, orchestras, managing events and promoting bilateral relations between countries through music would be an incredible way to make a living (and travel the world!)

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