StringFEVER bill themselves as the first genetically modified string quartet, which gives a good impression of their quirky humour. Brothers Giles, Ralph and Neal Broadbent are joined by their cousin Graham to create this showstopping entertainment quartet that tours the world with a hilarious and extraordinary show. I ask how it is that the entire family play string instruments, and Ralph tells me that it comes from his grandfather who was a good amateur musician. Of his sons, three became professional musicians, and from there the Broadbent boys were kind of destined to play! The brothers' dad is a violin teacher, teaching for many years at Rugby school, and still has 30 or so private pupils.

    One of the uncles is a member of the London Symphony Orchestra, and the other one used to be principal viola with Welsh National Opera. "Looking back, I didn't realise quite how lucky I was to have such experience in my family," says Ralph. "They were all able to tell us so much about what to expect from the music profession, and we used to go and watch uncles perform all the time." "We played loads of chamber music when we younger - there are plenty of other string players in the family as well! We used to go out busking as teenagers, as it was a great way to earn extra pocket money, and it's kind of from that basis that Stringfever evolved.

Whilst Giles and Graham and I were students we used to pack all our gear into a camper van and disappear off around Europe for the summer. Neal would have been about 7 or 8 at the time, but I bet he would have come if he could have! It certainly helped keep us out of debt as students, and we really enjoyed taking good quality music out on the streets.

    I think that in the UK classical music is not perceived as being widely available, so it was great to find a wider audience than we might otherwise have." I push a little on how this evolved into the extraordinary act that is now Stringfever, and Ralph explains that it was a combination of factors really.
About eight years ago, Giles' West End show that he had been leading the band for finished, and at the same time they met an agent specifically looking for a musical comedy act to book for the after dinner and corporate entertainment circuit. Neal had just finished school and was on a GAP year before heading off to the Guildhall, but the other boys kidnapped him!

They developed a 25 minute show that was fast-paced and varied which really kickstarted the group as a full time outfit. "When we'd been busking we discovered that you need to stand out to get the bigger crowds, so for some years we'd been working on developing the entertainment side of our act as well as the arrangements. We'd moved over to electric instruments too, for all sorts of reasons, not least that they're louder, so we could compete with the South American panpipes down the street!"

    About the instruments, Ralph has quite a lot to say. "Well we all play on Violectra instruments. We saw a guy busking with a six-string and asked him about it. He let us have a go, and gave us the number of the maker, David Bruce Johnson - a Canadian ex-pat living in Birmingham. He hand makes each instrument, from wood rather than composites or anything.
Giles (the eldest brother) has always had a real passion for the technological side of things, and had always wanted an electric, even though Dad wouldn't have heard of having one in the house when we were younger!
The great thing for us was that before Neal left school we didn't have a cellist, so the six-string was particularly useful - it meant I could play loads of bass lines on my violin! We all got so hooked on them that we told Neal we'd club together and buy him a cello when he passed his Grade 8. He's quite a bit younger than the rest of us, so it was our way of reeling him in. I also reckon the Violectras look absolutely stunning, and sound great too, provided you have the right amp."

"Giles, as I say, is the techno wizz, and he has done loads of research into FX units and amp modelling. We deliberately wanted a different sound to give us an identity, but also needed to be able to sound like a traditional string quartet too. Our dinner show needed to be fast-paced and interactive, so the ability to switch from sounding like a rock guitar to a 'real' violin and back and forth to keep an audience entertained is fantastic!"

  Stringfever Workshop Hosepipe competition (JESTA 1) winners, Superstrings, chose a visit by Stringfever as their prize and ESTA was delighted to support this venture. Felix Stephens and Isobel Morshead took part, and talk about their day.
A band of string playing brothers called Stringfever came and did a fantastic work shop with Superstrings, which was a great experience! First they gave us a taster of what they did, playing their electric instruments, which sounded very cool.

They played 'A history of music in 5 mins.' We were asked to try and guess all the tunes that popped up one after another in quick succession. It was quite difficult because they played at lightning speed but the medley began with Greensleeves, then some Mozart then galloped through William Tell on to Beethoven's 5th, the Nutcracker and into James Bond followed by Queen, Abba, The Beatles and Michael Jackson and finished with the themes from Jaws and Psycho. It was truly jaw-dropping!

Then it was time for us to all play together so Giles, Ralph, Neal and Graham picked up their normal violins and cello and came and joined the Superstrings ensemble. We all learned to play Stand By Me. The cellos played the bass line and the violins and violas played the rhythm and chords.

We memorised it by turning our backs on the music, and finally we were able to walk around the room, playing by ear as we accompanied the band while they improvised around the theme, it was really fun and pretty groovy too! After this we had a go at the James Bond theme, playing with them was great fun and it was very helpful having a leader in each section of our ensemble who could play so brilliantly and they were very good teachers.

The band are funny, great entertainers and passionate musicians. They are full of energy and humour. At one stage they asked for two volunteers, so Holly (9) and Willard (9) who play violin and cello had to stand on either side of the cellist while he began playing Ravel's Bolero. Gradually the whole band joined in except they were all playing on the same cello all together at the same time. It was an amazing display of string playing gymnastics and must have taken them years to perfect, as they all suddenly became one virtuoso cellist with eight arms!

At the end of the workshop we all had a go playing on Giles' bright blue 5 string Violectra violin and Neil's bright red 5 string Violectra cello. It was a memorable and thoroughly enjoyable afternoon for everyone.