Harriet Mackenzie

Profile

Harriet studied at the Royal Academy of Music graduating with First Class honours and a DipRAM. She has received awards by the musicians Benevolent Fund, the Tillett Trust, the Hattori Foundation and is a recipient of the Manoug Parikian Award, the Elise Owen award, the DM Lloyd Prize and Winifred Disney Award. During her time at the Academy Harriet was chosen to be concertmaster of all the orchestras, including the combined Symphony Orchestras of the Academy and Julliard Schools on tour -performing at the Royal Albert Hall, Wembley Arena and Radio City, New York. She has also led the Emfeb Symphony Orchestra, the King's Camerata and the Stanford Ensemble.
Harriet has toured Europe, America and Japan as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. In 2004 she played in the New Year Series in the Purcell Room with much success and then made her highly acclaimed debut at Wigmore Hall, playing in the Park Lane Young Artists Series. Since then she has given recitals in such prestigious venues as the “Marble Hall” in Budapest, the National Portrait Gallery as part of the McCann Series, the Beers Van Berlage Hall in Amsterdam, the Expo Dome in Japan, the British Library, the Purcell Room, St James Picadilly, St Martin-in-the-Fields and she was invited to return to the Wigmore Hall again for the closing concert of the Saint- Saens Festival playing with the Florestan Trio. She has broadcast recitals 'live' for BBC Radio 3, for Hungarian National Radio, and on Japanese National Television. She played the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Ukraine Philharmonic at the Chernigiv Festival in 2002 and has since been invited back every year.

Harriet has collaborated with composers such as Anthony Payne, David Matthews, Mauricio Kagel, Marc Yeats and Gyorgy Kurtag. To great acclaim she performed the premiere of a violin concerto, written for, and dedicated to her by Robert Fokkens, in the Purcell Room with the New Professionals Orchestra. (She was lent a Stradivarius violin by the Academy for this performance!)

Reviews

"Searing intensity....A performance full of panache.... Captivating" - The Strad
"the outstanding violinist Harriet Mackenzie and fine pianist Christopher Glynn showed what real performance is all about, not just accuracy and technical command, but imaginative daring..." - Anthony Payne, Country Life.
" A knock-out from start to finish" - The Guardian