Celoniatus Ensemble, directed by Harriet Mackenzie, continues it’s vibrant programme with a sold-out performance in the glorious Magdalen Chapel Oxford with the acclaimed International star Sir Willard White. The next Celoniatus concert will be October 11th at Stamford Arts Centre with a performance of Vaughan William’s Lark Ascending, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Eccles – Mad Lover’s Aire.
Harriet Mackenzie directed and performed with the English Chamber Orchestra for the first time in a sold out concert in Trinity College Chapel Cambridge with a programme of Bach violin concerto in A minor, Romance by Amy Beach and Vivaldi Four Seasons. The success of this concert has lead to a series with concerts in September and March 2026.
After recording his violin concerto with the RPO in 2016, Christopher Gunning was keen to write a violin concerto and dedicate it to Harriet. He finished the concerto in 2021 and it will receive the premiere recording in March 2024. Harriet was thrilled to work on his first violin concerto with him and to record that in 2016.
“Harriet Mackenzie brought my Violin Concerto to life in a way I could only have dreamed of.” – Christopher Gunning
“Central to the Concerto’s construction is the melodic development of the violin’s singing lines, and Harriet Mackenzie’s vibrant, tautly lyrical and conviction-filled reading has them unfurling here in thoroughly compelling form.” – Charlotte Gardner, The Strad (recording of the first violin concerto with the RPO).
Christopher Gunning was most famous was his film scores, including the BAFTA Award-winning La Vie En Rose, Porterhouse Blue, Agatha Christie’s Poirot and Middlemarch. He was a prolific composer of concert works too including 13 symphonies, extensive chamber music and a cello concerto.
