Q & A with Eos from BOND talks about the quartet's new release Come Home

The members of BOND - Tania Davis (Violin), Eos Counsell (violin), Elspeth Hanson (viola) and Gay-Yee Westerhoff (cello) - play music from a range of styles including classical, latin, folk, jazz, rock, pop, electro, Indian and music from the middle east.

Scala Radio has an exclusive first play of their latest release Come Home on Mark Forrest's show on Wednesday 24 June 2020 from 4pm. We spoke to violinist Eos and asked her about the new single and about the joys she's discovered during lockdown.

Describe what you can see from your nearest window.

I can see my garden- a bench, some flowers in pots and a silver birch tree swaying in the breeze.

How has lockdown been for you?

Having come through the initial weirdness of it all, and adjusted to our work being cancelled, I've really enjoyed the slower pace - more time at home with family, less time rushing about. All in all I've felt very lucky and very grateful to all the essential workers who are getting us through this difficult time.

What has surprised about the past three months?

I did think I'd get more done. More writing, more playing. But it's tricky to have enough free time with small kids well, that's my excuse anyway! One of the lovely things is how it has reminded me a bit of the long summers half-remembered from childhood. Having time to just stop and watch some ants with my daughter, or noticing birds nesting, and enjoying her sense of wonder at these small things we come to take for granted as adults.

Tell us about the new single out this Thursday - Come Home. What do you love about it?

We wrote Come Home with Toby Pitman, and that day had gone to his room at Air Studios to write some music together. Sometimes something just clicks and it's as though the music was always there and you just pluck it from the ether. Those are wonderful days - especially when you realise it definitely isn't something else that already exists! Come Home came together in 30 minutes - and just needed to be arranged so that we each had parts to record.

I love the space in this piece - it really breathes. Whereas our music is usually upbeat with big production and a more pop or world sensibility (our first two albums were recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, so the sound was massive!). Come Home is purely acoustic: just string quartet and piano. Emotionally, for me anyway, there is a sense of overcoming adversity about Come Home, and a sense of hope too. It has a sense of yearning, perhaps a sense of making peace with it too.

You talk in an interview we've read about the experience of being in a string quartet as being something like alchemy - what was the first piece of music you remember playing in the quartet that connected with you?

Playing music, especially with other people, is like alchemy. Whether its in a band or a duo, an orchestra or a string quartet. We've all been playing our instruments since we were young kids and will have many instances of that. But I remember the first piece we played acoustically together as Bond, was Bernard Hermann's Psycho.

What did you love most about it?

Well it's such an iconic score and it feels kind of wild to play.-We'd all played the more standard string quartets at college, which we loved. But I think partly what made Psycho so much fun was that we had it from memory and could really play around with the different timbres - with grit and bite and with making the sound uncomfortable to listen to. That felt quite freeing in itself! That self of unease is of course what makes Hermann's scores work so well in Hitchcock's films.

What are the biggest challenges for new parents today encouraging their children to learn a string instrument do you think?

Time and money, sadly. Time commitment: it takes time to take kids to their lessons and to sit with them while they practice in the early years. And it also costs money, since the budget cuts to music education (lessons and even after school orchestras and groups used to be free). It's important to make it fun for kids and for parents to acknowledge even tiny steps in progress. There are some great online resources such as the Benedetti Foundation which can really help to inspire and enrich budding musicians.

What do you love about returning to your chosen string instrument?

I love the honesty of it. Its such a direct instrument and it's lovely not to be tied to a screen or a cable (with the electric violin for example). I love that it can be a very sociable instrument (other than the hours of practice!), and that I could play it almost anywhere. when there's so much reliance on electricity, generally. I love recording and getting together with other musicians, or writing new music with the violin. My violin has been a gateway to experiencing so many different things - from busking on the streets of Cardiff, to playing at palaces, and as an adult travelling around the world. Short answer: when returning to my violin I feel a sense of relief.

When restrictions are eased and we return to (at least an adjusted normality) what one thing from lockdown would you like to keep?

I would like to keep those moments of wonder that I experience with my 4 year old daughter. Also the later morning starts.

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