Hearing an audience member yell out "sublime" as the New Zealand String Quartet played made violinist Monique Lapins’ year.
The quartet was playing the end of the slow movement in Schubert’s G major quartet, in a small hall on a tour of regional centres.
"I never forget — we don’t normally get that in an audience reaction and it’s my favourite memory of many of the tours, someone saying exactly what they felt."
Despite the general thinking that people should be quiet when listening to a classical concert, having people show their reactions to the music is something the quartet enjoys, she says.
"You are trying to break the fifth wall or the barrier between the stage and the audience; you want to make sure you are connecting. It’s the best time when you hear a sniffle at the back of the room or hall or that giggle when something’s quite funny in the music. We love it. People should react how they want."
It is experiences like that Lapins is recalling as she performs her last concerts with the New Zealand String Quartet. After eight years with the group, she describes as being her musical family, Lapins has decided, after much "racking of brains", it is time for a new chapter.
The decision was a tough one to make as she knows how lucky she has been to have the opportunity to work professionally with a quartet.
"It’s been a dream. It was quite fortuitous to be able to even audition for the quartet let alone to be able to live the dream for eight years."
Wanting to concentrate on her time left with the quartet, Lapins is not saying what that new chapter might entail after June other than to say she has performances booked which will keep her in New Zealand until 2025.
"There is stuff brewing which will reveal itself in due course but I’m very much focusing on the quartet."
That includes a tour of the South Island, including three concerts in Dunedin, before a final concert in Wellington which will also welcome the new second violinist Peter Clark, who, like Lapins, is an Australian.
"It all feels very magnified at the moment. You know there is an end date so you appreciate every moment in a more vivid way. "
Some of her favourite memories have been touring New Zealand, especially the South Island, so it seems fitting her last tour with the quartet will travel to some smaller centres.
"For me it is quite nostalgic. They have significant places in my heart."
"This kind of concert is quite a magical experience. We are quite literally seeing trees and hearing birds, while the programme has bird iterations throughout. It’s beautiful to feel music and nature talking to each other. We had to bring it to Dunedin."
Other memories of "magical times" with the quartet include overseas tours, in particular a tour of Europe to perform the Beethoven Cycle just after the Covid pandemic.
"Playing every quartet by Beethoven, which for any quartet player is a big bucket list thing to achieve in life, so that was very amazing and intense experience. A bit like Dunedin, we were doing totally different programmes every day, six days straight. It was a mammoth experience and also visceral."
It was also an opportunity to play in some historic concert halls such as Concertgebouw De Vereeniging (Nijmegen), where they performed the final concert of the Netherlands leg of the Beethoven Cycle.
Another special memory is of playing together during the Covid lockdown when they were able to extend their bubbles to family.
"We treated each other as family which we are. It was like a little retreat. With no concerts planned we were rehearsing, playing music together every day. It was this very magical time to have this free rein of musical exploration."
All of the many and varied experiences with the quartet have extended her musically as well. She has had the opportunity to learn "some of the most magnificent" works written for string quartets.
"To get to play to so many diverse audiences in New Zealand and internationally has been a unique, wonderful opportunity."
Being part of a quartet is also like being part of a "hyper-focused" democracy, especially when touring, day in and day out together.
"Having many debates about how a phrase should go, learning from each other all the time. It has helped me and shaped me as a musician. They’re all such incredible performers and musicians. They’ve all left an impression on me that I will take forward."
Part of her role with the quartet has also been to teach and work with the students at the New Zealand School of Music as well as privately.
"It’s been a really important thing for me as well, to see wonderful young musicians flower into careers has been a really meaningful and touching experience."
When Lapins secured the role in 2016, she was the first new member in 21 years, taking over from Douglas Beilman who played the second violin for 26 years.
She was home in Australia when the opportunity came up, having just finished her time as a violinist in the Hyogo Performing Arts Centre Orchestra in Osaka, Japan.
She secured that role having completed a full scholarship to the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore which enabled her to do a lot of "adventuring", attending festivals around the world.
Prior to that she studied at the Australian National Academy of Music under William Hennessy, having learnt the violin through the Suzuki Method since she was 6 years old when her father, inspired by reading about the Stradivarius 1721 Red Mendelssohn violin, commonly referred to as the "Red Violin", asked her if she would like to learn to play.
"I frankly had no idea what a violin was but I was, like, yes."
She found the Suzuki Method of picking up the language through sound first then learning the structure behind it worked for her.
"It made it a playful experience and it stuck."
While she admits there were a few times growing up when she got fed up with all the practice required and threatened to throw in the towel, she quickly changed her mind.
"I’m so hooked on the violin. I love its expressive capacity and you can play violin in so many different situations — electrical, classical, jazz, in Indian music. There are so many different styles, so much to explore, it is never ending."
Lapins describes herself as having a very open mind musically with a love of not only chamber but orchestra, "dabbling" in solo performances and "wacky" collaborations with others.
"They are all very different organisms but chamber music ties everything together."
But ultimately being able to move someone with her music is the main reason she does what she does.
"I love that it could be something where you hopefully touch someone’s heart. If someone is having a bad day and you can play for them whether it’s in concert or anywhere, that to me is the most important thing of this. If you can take someone away from the world or let them experience emotions for a time is significant. We need that more now than ever.
"To have a moment of reflection in this world is important and I feel that when I play music as well. If you get transported yourself , more often than not you end up transporting the audience with you."
TO SEE:
New Zealand String Quartet, Soundscapes at the Regent, May 10, 7:30pm – 9:30pm, May 11, 4pm, Clarkson Studio-Regent Theatre, Dunedin; Sounds of the Sanctuary at Orokonui, May 12, 5pm – 7pm.
