They never told me that music journalism could be like this: that one day I'd be playing the violin at the Aldeburgh festival, at the mercy of the elements and the judgement of professional, bona-fide musicians who, on another occasion, I might be reviewing.

Call it karmic retribution. But I should have seen it coming when I signed up my string quartet for the Aldeburgh Musicircus, the latest take on John Cage’s 1967 concept involving a cacophony of mixed-genre, mixed ability musicians. Actually, I needn't have worried. Walking down the rammed sea front last Sunday I heard ukuleles, trumpeters, bagpipers, barrel organs, seagulls, and I saw stilt-walkers, puppets, flags, and a mystifying sign inviting us to cook our eggs ‘to perfection to the silence of John Cage's 4' 33''.’ But in a line-up of roughly 800 musicians it was hard to make out individual performances – hardly a high-pressure scenario.

Nevertheless, soon after arriving at our first location - Shelter 3 - I began to feel queasy. And circumstances weren't on our side: at that moment our cellist was frantically pegging down our music, which was straining to fly away. Our viola player was attempting to tune up in spite of the brass band honking beside us. And our first violinist was doing origami with a plaster, having managed to slice her finger open the previous day.

So our first attempt at Dvořák's American Quartet was the ropiest (was it just coincidence that whenever I played a bum note, our audience got smaller?) But things were about to get odder. As we wandered into our second venue ('152 Garage'), I noticed a mysterious, dark-haired gent sitting in a corner, thumping away at a dusty piano. Since he didn't turn around, acknowledge us or show any signs of stopping, we decided to drown him out. Only when someone stage-whispered: 'It's Pierre-Laurent Aimard!' did I realise what we were up against. The result was a Doomsday rendition of the American, Aimard puncturing Dvořák’s sunny lyricism with diabolically dissonant note-jabbing.

John Cage would have been so proud, as, perhaps, would Aldeburgh Festival founder Benjamin Britten, famous as he was for juxtaposing professional and amateur music-making. Still, competing with a superstar pianist was enough of a challenge for one day. Or so we thought, until we arrived at our third location (Moot Hall tarmac), and found, to our dismay, a spirited bongo band overlooked by Roger Wright, Aldeburgh Music’s new Chief Executive. Forget interpretation, phrasing, dynamic contrast. Maintaining our dignity was all that mattered. And for a while even that seemed beyond us: we couldn't hear ourselves, let alone each other. But halfway through the final movement, fate took pity on us. The bongos disappeared, and we inherited their audience. So we socked it to them, hacking away at the rushing triplets with gladiatorial conviction, prompting a loud cheer at the end – not necessarily enough to get us a repeat invitation, but still a fitting note on which to finish.