Heartstrings

Foreword

2024 is a milestone year for Heart­strings, as we commem­orate our thirtieth year as a music ministry in this parish. Over three decades, we have had a total of sixteen members at various phases, each one having contributed much needed impetus and vigour to our group dynamic, and helping cultivate our unique style of contemplative praise and worship music. When we first start­ed out, we were initially mindful that our music genre and style might be somewhat ‘unconven­tional’ in a Catholic liturgical setting, but as we cautiously dipped our toes in, we were elated with the encouragement we got from the community. Perhaps their enthus­iasm derived from the fact that there were no other formalised music providers supplement­ing our sole parish choir at that time. In the end, we never found out why, but the most important thing was, we survived.

In The Beginning…

It all began in 1994, when Fr. Peter Prendergast was the parish priest, and Georgie Pie was still a popular New Zealand icon. Two avid guitar aficionados, Alan Goh (myself) and Graham Crooks were introduced to each other by our wives Dollin and Sheldene. They had met in church, become friends, and discovered that their respective husbands were acoustic guitar enthusiasts. Both our families had also arrived in Auckland around the same time in January 1994 from Singapore and South Africa respectively.

xxxxxOur families began to meet regularly for meals and drinks. Then one evening, when all our children were watching TV and the women were chatting in the dining room, Graham and I picked up our guitars and played our first song together. It was ‘Everything I Own’ by Bread.

xxxxxAs we sang, the women stopped their chatting to listen. When we finished, they told us they couldn’t believe we had not practiced together before, because our vocal harmonies and guitar work were so tight and well-coordinated. On reflection, I realized it wasn’t so much our skill as it was the likelihood that musicians who share a similar interest in the same type of music genre are usually better able to spontaneously and instinctively ‘gel’ together. This has been our guiding principle for recruiting new members until this day.

xxxxxSome months later, Graham and I were encouraged by Sister Genevieve, who was assistant to our parish priest and the music co­ordinator, to volunteer our servic­es for church Masses.

xxxxxIn late 1994, both of us, along with our wives, formed The Music Group, and began singing at evening Masses. We were assisted by two parish youth members Joseph Hoy and Yvonne Roberts, who had kindly volunteered to help phase us in, and, together with active support coming from Sister Genevieve, we were finally in business.

First intake of New Members.

Our contemporary style of music may have initially raised a few traditionalist eyebrows, but a year later, Paul Philips and Cherie Aronsen asked to join our group, and they were followed shortly after by Angela Reece and a fellow Singaporean lady Linda Nettar. Unfortunately, we also lost our youth mentors Joseph and Yvonne to other commitments. It was at this period in end-1995, that we were also invited to perform our first public gig at Christmas in the Park in Beachlands.

Adopting the Name ‘Heartstrings’

If my memory serves me right, it was probably sometime in 1996 that we took on the name ‘Heartstrings’. It resulted from a telephone call I took from someone coordinating our school mass which we were providing music for, and who asked me what the name of our group was. For some enigmatic reason, at that instant, the name ‘Heartstrings’, came to mind. It was actually the name of a social action organisation in Singapore that I was familiar with. Hence was born the name we are still known by until this day. On reflection, the name Heartstrings is apt as it defines the reflective, contemplative and acoustical nature of our music style.

A Tribute to our Members
While our style of music has re­main­ed largely unchanged since the days of Graham and I, our membership has evolved quite considerably. With our first intake of new members complete, Dollin and Sheldene felt our foundation was firm enough for them to vacate their supporting roles in Heartstrings and pursue their own ministries in the parish.

xxxxxThe years that followed saw two more new members, Christine Pepping, and our first bass guitarist Natalie Rust, who had arrived recently from Durban, South Africa. Unfortunately, both of them left us only a few years later to take up residency in Australia. In 1998, we also lost Cherie Aronsen who had to relocate to Palmerston North.

xxxxxOur biggest loss came when Graham, Heartstring’s co-founding member, had to leave us to live and work in Whangarei, leaving myself (Alan) as the sole remaining found­ing member and the group’s coordinator. Fortunately though, we were joined shortly after that by Naomi Smith, who was to assume a key role as our main female vocalist and guitarist for many years. We also welcomed the return of Cherie Aronsen in 2004, whose family had relocated back to Auckland from Palmerston North. Cherie’s return was a godsend to Heartstrings be­cause her harmonizing vocals was an invaluable asset to our ‘folkish’ trademark.

xxxxxOver the following years, Linda and Angela also left and were replaced by Sian and Martinya, two youth who, quite unusual for people their age group, loved our genre of music. By 2009, fifteen years after we first started out, there were six of us remaining, as the photo insert below shows (L to R: Naomi, Martinya, Cherie, Sian, Paul and I (Alan).

xxxxxSian and Martinya both eventually left Heartstrings to further their tertiary studies, leaving just the four of us who were to remain the nucleus for Heartstrings for many more years to come.

xxxxxTragically, in June 2017, Paul Philips passed away. It was a sad but memorable day when the remaining three of us sang at his funeral mass. We deeply missed his backup male vocals and his eccentric presence. Less than two years later, we also lost Naomi Smith, our main female vocalist and guitarist, who had to leave the group for health reasons. Naomi had played a key role in bringing renewed inspiration and energy to our group dynamic for several years. She was a palpable loss for us also because in the following years, we no longer had the means of singing our full bodied three-part vocal harmonies, which had been our trademark until then.

xxxxxJust as the future was starting to look gloomy, in came the colorful and flamboyant ‘Mauritian Minstrel’, Sydney Rouge, who took on the role of bass guitarist and percussionist. Until then, we never really had a proper percussionist for our music, but the arrival of Sydney marked the beginning of our new venture of adding country music to our existing repertoire, and our participation in a series of ’gigs’ at private and public functions. One of the earliest functions we organised was a music concert and dance event in Nov 2017 with a number of co-opted musicians (see poster below).

xxxxxThis was followed by another pop and country music festival in Dec 2018. Our last big ‘gig’ was ‘Down Memory Lane’ during which we raised funds to buy much needed replacement music equipment for our church. Aside from these, we were also ‘hired’ to provide music at various private, club and wedding functions.

xxxxxThe Covid pandemic years of 2019 to 2022 saw us take a hiatus from regular music ministry. Nonetheless, we still managed to get together on many occasions to practice new songs for future events. Following the removal of covid restrictions, we took on our newest member Maugan Stevens, who joined us in Nov 2022 as a supporting vocalist. So, finally, after such a long period, we are now back to being able to try to revive our three-part harmonies again.

Our Autumn Years

As at now, there are four of us in Heartstrings: Maugan, Sydney, Cherie, and I (photo insert above). As we celebrate our thirty years of continuous music ministry at the end of 2024, we begin to reflect on what the future may hold for us, and for how long more we would be able to continue our present ministry. What remains certain would be our endeavour to continue the legacy of our contemplative music tradition for as long as we are still able to, as an entity. For that is what Heartstrings has always been all about.

xxxxxWe passionately feel that music is an integral part of worship liturgy, hence the saying: ‘music is prayer twice over’. Perhaps popular singer-songwriter Don McLean put it most succinctly in his 1971 dirge ‘American Pie’, when he sang that the three men he admired most, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, caught the last train to the coast … the day the music died!

Time to Celebrate… with Fund-Raising Concerts

Finally, all four of us have agreed, as part of our 30th anniversary celebration, Heartstrings would plan to hold a number of intimate evening ‘fireplace’ music concerts featuring country western and popular music from the 1960s and 1970s over the next few months, culminating in a major music and dance event towards the middle of 2025. And it is timely that our parish centre renovation project is commencing around this period as we also intend to contribute a major portion of the proceeds from these events to the renovation project, leaving a smaller amount to replace our aging sound equipment. We sincerely hope our parish com­munity and friends will actively support these forthcoming events, details of which would be announced in due course.

xxxxxIn the meantime though, we’ll just keep plugging on our string instruments until our fingers lose their subtleness, by which time we might have to change our name from Heartstrings to Geriatrics and the Pacemakers!

Alan Goh

Group Coordinator, Heartstrings

November 2024