"Searing intensity... a performance full of panache... captivating." -The Strad

Biography
Harriet has toured Europe, America and Japan as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. Harriet gave her highly acclaimed Purcell Room recital debut as part of the Park Lane Young Artists Series. Since then she has given recitals in such prestigious venues as the Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouwe and the Beers Van Berlage Hall in Amsterdam, the Marble Hall in Budapest, Leeds International Concert Series, the Lysenko Hall of Marble Columns in Kyiv, the Expo Dome in Japan - which was broadcast on Japanese National television. Harriet premiered Robert Fokkens violin concerto, written and dedicated to her, at the South Bank. She has broadcast recitals 'live' for BBC Radio 3, Radio London, Classic FM and for Hungarian National Radio. Harriet regularly gives concerto performances in the UK and abroad.

Harriet studied at the Royal Academy of Music graduating with first class honours, MMus and her Dip RAM – the highest award for graduates. Harriet has been given scholarships for her studies by the Royal Academy, the Musicians Benevolent Fund, Tillett Trust, the Martin Trust and the Hattori Foundation and is a recipient of the Manoug Parikian Award, the Winifred Disney Prize and the Elsie Owen Award.

Harriet enjoys working with composers and has collaborated with John McCabe, Jim Aitchison, Anthony Payne, David Matthews, Robert Fokkens, Mauricio Kagel, Gyorgy Kurtag, Paul Pellay, Dmitri Smirnov, Paul Patterson, Ben Ellin and Ben Oliver.

Harriet is a keen chamber music player. Her group Kosmos is highly acclaimed, performing all over Europe - “Impeccable musicianship.. I defy you not to be mesmerised” - Richard Morrison, chief music critic of The Times. Kosmos perform their own compositions, arrangements and improvisations inspired by Gypsy, Jewish, Arabic, Balkan, Jazz, Tango and contemporary music. Her duo 'The Sutherland Duo' with pianist Christina Lawrie recently won the 'Enterprise Music Scotland Residency Award'. This will result in a commission of a Scottish composer of their choice, tours of Scotland and a CD recording featuring the commissioned work. Harriet has collaborated with the Carducci Quartet and the Florestan Trio as well as having a busy performing schedule with International prize winning accordionist Milos Milivojevic in duo 'In Accord', with guitarist Morgan Szymanski, in violin duo 'Retorica' with fellow violinist Philippa Mo. Future highlights for Harriet include a tour of Taiwan and China with Retorica, the release of Retorica's debut CD of British works for two violins, the debut recording of John McCabe's two violin concerto, Retorica will also be the group in residency at the Presteigne Festival 2012 and will have a new concerto written and dedicated to them by Cecilia McDowell, the release of Kosmos's second album, sponsorship from Japanese designer Hiroko Koshino, a new concerto written and dedicated to her by Graham Coatman to be performed at the Hexham Abbey Festival, chamber music performances with clarinettist Michael Collins, viola player Sarah Jane Bradley and contemporary vocal ensemble 'juice'.




Harriet Mackenzie reviewed

The Strad - Edward Bhesania, July 2006

Bax's meandering unpublished violin Sonata may not have been the ideal opener for Harriet Mackenzie's showcase concert as part of the South Bank Centre's 'Fresh' series, but that didn't seem to matter. From the beginning Mackenzie had a firm grip on its faltering Molto Moderato first movement, lyrical and yet unsettled. Despite the altogether faster tempo of the Allegro - and here there was no doubt about Mackenzie's power and dexterity - there nevertheless remained a solid reserve of control.

James Macmillan's Kiss on Wood drew out vibrantly intense yet hypnotic playing of the chant theme. Here Yue Shen was equally focused in the dramatic outwards cascading arpeggios as in the progressively dying repeated single-note ending.

Mackenzie proved she could let her hair down in Schoenfield's jazz and folk influenced Who Let the Cat Out, though the biggest surprise came after the interval in Kagel's East and West from Kagel's Die Stucke der Windrose ( the points of the compass ) complete with axe toting percussionist. Here Mackenzie led the New Professionals ensemble with flair. The band remained on stage for the premiere of An Eventful Morning in East London, a violin concerto by South African composer Robert Fokkens. Soaring violin lines and finger-twisting motivic circles of falling scales proved no problem in a solo role that matched the big-band bravado of the ensemble writing.

Jersey Evening Post Jaqueline Mezec, November 2006

......violinist Harriet Mackenzie is onstage throughout like the spectre at the feast, her playing by turns tender, plaintive, mocking or jarring, signalling the mood, the atmosphere by the lake, the characters. This bold and experimental touch adds to the manic energy of the production.

The Times Review Richard Morisson, 5th July 2006

My puny brain still reels from trying to absorb this action-packed concert, part of the Fresh Young Musicians series. It began as a violin and piano recital, expanded into the weird, wacky, theatrical world of Mauricio Kagel, and ended with 18 people crammed on the platform to premiere a new concerto by the young South African Robert Fokkens. You can attend whole seasons by some famous orchestras and not get this much novelty.

At the centre of this merry-go-round was the violinist Harriet Mackenzie, not long graduated from the Royal Academy of Music (and borrowing an RAM Strad for the occasion), but already a formidably well-organised talent. Every piece was contemporary apart from the first, and even that was unknown - Arnold Bax's unpublished 1928 Violin Sonata, plucked from a manuscript in the British Library. Wild, meandering, Celtic-tinged and strewn with jagged leaps, it sounded like a lot of hard work for modest musical rewards.

Mackenzie and the pianist Yue Shen followed that with two more engaging works. James MacMillan�s Kiss on Wood is a typically intense fantasia on a Good Friday plainsong, in which the players, often in unison, trace the melody with lots of Gallic embellishment. In this unchurchy ambience it didn't quite cast the expected ethereal spell. But they gave a bravura account of Schoenfield's Who let the cat out last night?, a playful blue-grass pastiche studded with in-jokes and ferocious technical demands.

For the Kagel and Fokkens, Mackenzie was joined by conductor Tim Murray and the New Professionals Orchestra, a talented band, all in their twenties. I loved their two extracts from Kagel's Die St�cke der Windrose (The Points of the Compass), for a �salon orchestra� of strings, clarinet, piano, harmonium and a percussionist who must not only blow a mean mouth organ but also don protective goggles and chop wood with an axe. By turns cartoony, smoochy, creepy, corny, folky and anarchic, the music seems to follow a subtext that listeners can perceive only dimly, if at all. But dull it never is.

After that, Fokkens's Violin Concerto, titled An Eventful Morning Somewhere Near East London, might have sounded anticlimactic. But Fokkens has his own engaging quirkiness, and this short, two-movement work always gripped the ear. Tiny melodic motifs are constantly developed by the soloist, as intriguing orchestral textures rise (sometimes a bit too oppressively) or fall beneath. The music never settles in metre and style, though some frenetic, Turnage-style big-band riffs and blaring brass refrains of what sound like the Dies Irae theme increasingly dominate. It was all impeccably prepared. I'd like to hear it all again.

Country Life - Anthony Payne, July 2003

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 in such pieces as Adam Gorb's finely crafted Klezmer and Robert Fokkens' beautiful Irreconcilable Truths receiving its premiere.

The Strad - Catherine Nelson, May 2003

Park Lane Group Artists electrified the Purcell Room while snow brought London to a halt in January, reports Catherine Nelson.

There's always something special about the Park Lane Group series which comes around every January at the Purcell Room. Customarily excellent players present contemporary music from the weird to the wonderful with imagination and creative energy - a gust of fresh air guaranteed to drive away the post-Christmas blues.

On 6th January violinist Harriet Mackenzie lived up to expectations and more with her sturdy vibrant tone and gift for communicating the most diverse of pieces. She opened with Adam Gorb's virtuosic solo work and played its heart rendering melodies and angular, percussive rhythms with searing intensity.

Anthony Payne's Of Knots And Skeins (2001) alternates contrapuntal complexity with flowing lyricism: pianist Christopher Glynn joined Harriet for a performance full of panache....They were in fine fettle for the premiere of Robert Fokkens� Irreconcilable Truths, with its contemplative wandering delicacy and sudden outbursts. The fluid feel of Louis Andriessen's aptly named Disco (1982) for amplified violin and piano was captivating, played with laid back precision.

The Classical Source 0 Richard Whitehouse, 2003

Violinist Harriet Mackenzie made an immediate impression playing, from memory, Adam Gorb's Klezmer, an attractive work of Eastern promise, going back to Eastern roots but sounding familiar through the music of Bartok. Anthony Payne's Of Knots And Skeins intrigued the ear with it's web and unfurling.

Chernigiv Daily 2004

�Harriet gave a breathtaking account of Sibelius violin concerto.�

The Classical Source - Richard Whitely, 2003

�Monday's evening concert was emphatically one of contrast. Harriet Mackenzie articulated the stylised Yiddish gestures of Adam Gorb's Klezmer with winning clarity and proved equally at home in Anthony Payne's Of Knots and Skeins attractive in it's craggy lyricism.

Robert Fokkens� Irreconcilable Truths made moving disparity between violin and piano while Louis Andriessen's Disco gave Mackenzie the chance to let her hair down in a suitably visceral account.�

The Guardian, 2003

�A knock-out from start to finish.�