Take a bow, Elspeth; Electric string quartet Bond play free Bull Ring sh hows with new member: Music.

Byline: Andy Coleman

B IRMINGHAM has its first chance to see the new Bond tomorrow - and we're not talking about 007 actor Daniel Craig.

Electric string quartet Bond will reveal their new line-up when they perform a handful of free shows at the Bull Ring at 12pm, 3pm and 5pm..

Violinist Elspeth Hanson has replaced Haylie Ecker who left to have a baby.

"When Haylie left we had loads of applications from different violinists to take her place," says 33-year-old viola player Tania Davis. "But we were watching the Beijing Olympics' closing ceremony and noticed a violinist on stage with Jimmy Page and David Beckham. She was playing really well and improvising and we thought she looked great." That violinist was Elspeth and the group, completed by second violinist Eos Chater and cellist Gay-Yee Westerhoff, quickly made contact.

"We got on really well and when she played with us it worked perfectly.

We work so closely together you have to have the right chemistry.

With Elspeth it really clicked musically." It's not the first time Bond, who with sales of four million albums are the world's best-selling string quartet, have welcomed a new member. When Eos was unable to play the rest of the band turned to the group who many now see as their natural successors.

" A couple of years ago Eos broke her ankle. We'd heard of Escala, they were a corporate gig band, so we asked their violinist Izzy to stand in for Eos. She went with us to Dubai for a show we'd agreed to do." There are no hard feelings between us and Escala - we're flattered that they like what we do.

Even some of the tracks on their new album are tracks that we used on our previous album. We wish them all the best." Escala came to the fore while Bond were taking some time out to spend with family. Tania is now the mother of two lads, Lukas, aged three, and one-year-old Hugo.

But now they're back with plans for a new album of gypsy/ folkinfluenced music.

Tomorrow in the Bull Ring they will be playing their version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, commissioned by Peugeot to mark the launch of their new 308 CC model..

The track is available to download free from www.opentoallseasons.

co.uk Says Tania: "We've always wanted to do something with the Four Seasons.

We're fans of Nigel Kennedy's version but we wanted to create something new.

"We picked out all the melodies we thought would work well, and the kind of backing we thought would go well, and it's quite dancey because we felt it's fast exciting music that would work well with a dance feel."

CAPTION(S):

Bond, from left, Eos Chater, Elspeth Hanson, Tania Davis and Gay-Yee Westerhoff.