Hanging by a string

A classical music career hasn't quelled this violinist's adventurous spirit.

- by RICHARD BETTS

You wonder, in retrospect, if Eden Annesley's violin teacher would have been so encouraging had she known what her student was getting up to. Annesley, who tours the North Island plus Cromwell with the Antipodes Quartet, had asked for leave to do volunteer work in Southeast Asia.

“She was very supportive of me,” Queenslander Annesley says, “like letting me do my exams early to go and access these sorts of experiences, which was so lovely of her.” These sorts of experiences included standing on rickety scaffolding while building houses in Cambodia – the kind of behaviour that gives instrument teachers conniptions. Did Annesley ever worry about injuring her hands?