The New Zealand String Quartet begin Chamber Music New Zealand's eclectic and electrifying 2005 Celebrity Season by plugging in their instruments to perform a work that explores the soundscape of the Vietnam War.

The New Zealand String Quartet begin Chamber Music New Zealand's eclectic and electrifying 2005 Celebrity Season by plugging in their instruments to perform a work that explores the soundscape of the Vietnam War. The piece by George Crumb, titled Black Angels, is possibly the only quartet piece to have been inspired by the war and is subtitled Thirteen images from the dark land. The NZSQ (Helene Pohl, violin, Douglas Beilman, violin, Gillian Ansell, viola, Rolf Gjelsten, cello) feel the work is just as relevant today and its message just as powerful as when it was first written in 1970.

Crumb is renown for producing "hauntingly beautiful" music and NZSQ's performance of Black Angels will be highly unorthodox in many ways. The quartet will amplify the stringed instruments to produce a highly surrealistic and unnerving effect. This will be heightened by the use of unusual string effects such as bowing on the 'wrong' side of the bridge to produce hazy and smoky sounds and using electronic effects with pedal tones to portray dark undertones in the piece. The work also calls for the group to make sounds through water-filled glasses, spoken word, shouting, maracas and even includes a Tam Tam (a Chinese gong).

The group will perform Black Angels in eight centres throughout New Zealand in their Celebrity Season tour in March and April this year. The group last toured for CMNZ in 2004, performing selection of traditional works by Beethoven and Brahms and are looking forward to doing something "outside the square" of traditional chamber music repertoire in 2005.