Music / folk
Review: Methera, The New Room
The opening gig in the folk at The New Room series was a real corker. String quartet Methera delivered a totally unplugged set in their elegant chapel venue, illuminated by candles and fairy lights.
Folk at the New Room is a monthly concert series, curated by the infectiously enthusiastic musician Laurel Swift, and set in the world’s oldest methodist chapel which also boasts a shiny new café and museum. Sat within a circle of fairy lights on the wooden floor, in a pool of light falling from the lantern window above, John Dipper and Emma Reid (fiddle), Miranda Rutter (viola) and Lucy Deakin (cello) made magical music.
They’ve been playing together for ten years, and although they live in various locations across England and Sweden, their companionship and familiarity shone through in every note. They sat facing the middle of the circle watching each other but also able to engage with the audience who enclosed them on three sides. In a new take on musical chairs, they changed seats in between pieces, and took turns in addressing the audience with relaxed chat about the origins of the music, interspersed with engaging anecdotes and personal stories. They talked about the delight of exploring folk music through the voice of their strings, perfectly illustrated through their range of traditional and contemporary compositions.
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The New Room chapel made for an incredibly intimate setting, with lovely natural acoustics which made the sound of the strings completely encompassing, all the way from the pews to the gallery. The deeply rooted patterns of the folk music connected with something really fundamental, joyous and melancholy. The audience was so absorbed that the end of each piece was marked with a moment of pensive silence, all but for the ticking of the elderly chapel clock, before the fervent applause.
I was struck by the timelessness of it all – a candlelit concert, exquisitely beautiful string-playing, melodies and harmonies so comforting that they seemed to have been known since before birth. The New Room was the perfect setting for this astoundingly good performance from Methera, and now I can’t wait for next month’s instalment of the Folk at the New Room series, and to be back in what I think is my favourite new venue.
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