James Gilchrist, Philippa Mo, Jelena Makarova
Biographie James Gilchrist, Philippa Mo, Jelena Makarova
James Gilchrist
Gilchrist's musical interest was fired at a young age, singing first as a chorister in the choir of New College, Oxford and later as a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge. Gilchrist’s extensive concert repertoire has seen him perform in major concert halls throughout the world with renowned conductors including Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Roger Norrington, Bernard Labadie, Harry Christophers, Harry Bicket, Masaaki Suzuki and the late Richard Hickox.
A master of English music, Gilchrist has performed Benjamin Britten’s Church Parables in St Petersburg, London and at the Aldeburgh Festival, Nocturne with the NHK Symphony in Tokyo and War Requiem with the San Francisco Symphony and the National Youth Orchestra of Germany. He has performed the role of Rev. Adams in Britten’s Peter Grimes with the Bergen Philharmonic conducted by Edward Gardner at the Edinburgh Festival, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Grieghallen and Den Norske Opera, as well as in Deborah Warner’s award-winning production at the Royal Ballet & Opera Covent Garden, Opéra de Paris, Teatro Real and Opera di Roma. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and the St John and St Matthew passions feature prominently in Gilchrist’s schedule, and he is celebrated as perhaps the finest Evangelist of his generation; as one review noted, “he hasn’t become a one-man Evangelist industry by chance”.
As an established recitalist, Gilchrist continues to expand his work, especially through his collaboration with pianist Anna Tilbrook with whom he has performed for over 25 years. Their significant discography includes song cycles by Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann, Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge and Songs of Travel, and songs by Sir Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten and John Jeffreys. Their latest recording, Go, Lovely Rose: Songs of Roger Quilter, was released on Chandos Records in 2024.
Gilchrist’s 2026/27 season includes North American performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and St John Passion with Toronto’s Tafelmusik, as well as recitals at the Cascade Song Festival, Oregon and at St John’s Lattingtown Episcopal Church in Long Island. European engagements include concerts at Norway’s Sunnmøre Chamber Music Festival, Handel’s Messiah and the Christmas Oratorio with Polyphony and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Stephen Layton at London’s Sinfonia Smith Square, Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana in Palermo conducted by Gianluca Marcianò, Respighi’s Christus with the Orquestra Ciudad de Grenada conducted by Fabio Biondi, and Mozart’s Requiem at the Omodernt Festival Stockholm conducted by Hugo Ticciati. He sings Evangelist in Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the VICA Ensemble in Saxony and in the St John Passion with the Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra conducted by Jarosław Thiel at both Wroclaw’s National Forum of Music and La Seine Musicale in Paris, and with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Peter Whelan at Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre.
Jelena Makarova
is an award winning Russian-Lithuanian pianist based in London. She studied at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Drama and at the Royal Academy of Music, where she participated in masterclasses with Pierre Laurent-Aimard and György Kurtág.
She is in high demand as a soloist, chamber musician, accompanist. Performances include concerts at Carnegie Hall, New York; Mozart’s Konzerthaus, Vienna; St. Martin-in-the-Fields; St. James’s Piccadilly; St. John’s Smith Square and St. George’s Hall, Bristol. Jelena has also collaborated with the New London Orchestra, National Youth Wind Orchestra, Baltic Art Form and the Royal Ballet School. She is a co-founding member of Living Songs, Chromatikon collective and Trio Sonorité.
Jelena recently performed in the Illuminate series of concerts by women composers, where she performed music by Angela Elizabeth Slater, Sarah Westwood and Lithuanian composer Zita Bružaitė. During the Covid pandemic in 2020, she performed for the Bitesize Proms online concert series performing piano miniatures Kindred by Sarah Westwood. She also gave the online première of Edge of Time by Ruta Vitkauskaite, (co-funded by Help Musicians UK) with her ensemble Trio Sonorité (cello, clarinet & piano). Jelena has recently been awarded a prestigious individual scholarship from the Lithuanian Cultural Council to première piano works by Lithuanian composers Medekšaitė, Bružaitė and Vitkauskaite in the UK.
As well as performing, Jelena is a highly experienced piano teacher and has taught for over fifteen years in east London primary and secondary schools.
Philippa Mo
studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London and at the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing. Philippa now performs extensively as a chamber musician. She has given performances and live broadcasts worldwide, including her acclaimed debut at the Wigmore Hall, recitals at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, St John’s, Smith Square, London, the Deutsches Museum, Munich, the Natural History Museum, Ulaan Bataar, when she was invited as the only British musician to participate as soloist in the International Music Festival of Contemporary Music, Mongolia in 2002. Philippa has also been invited to play at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and The Tate St Ives in the UK and more further afield at the Ankara International Music Festival and the Lincoln Center, New York.
A champion of contemporary music, Philippa has given workshops on British music at the Central Conservatory, Beijing and at Bilkent and Hacettep Universities in Ankara, Turkey. She coached students of the Kurmangazy National Conservatory of Kazakhstan in Almaty 2007-09. She has worked closely with many leading British composers including Gabriel Prokofiev, Robert Fokkens, Cecilia McDowall, Leo Geyer, David Matthews, John McCabe, Jim Aitchison, Wendy Hiscocks and Errollyn Wallen and has given premieres of their solo and violin duo works.
Philippa has established an ongoing relationship with the Tate St Ives and recorded a solo work written for her by Leo Geyer on the anniversary of Barbara Hepworth to be used as a sound installation at the Tate. She also premiered a new solo work by composer Jim Aitchison alongside his monumental solo work Shibboleth at CAST, Helston and at the Porthmeor studios, St Ives. Concerto appearances include a newly commissioned work for Truro Cathedral as part of the innovative Online Orchestra Project with the Philharmonia Orchestra. and Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires in The Venue, Leeds with conductor Natalia Luis Bassa as well as John McCabe's Les Martinets Noirs at the Lidköping Festival, Sweden.
Philippa has performed at the gallery Sladers Yard in Dorset for a number of years and gave her solo series Partita Fantasia Caprice in six concerts in which she explored the complete solo works of JS Bach and the complete Telemann Fantasias in the context of early Baroque solo violin repertoire right through to newly written works.
In 2018, Philippa founded the series Philippa Mo @ Shortwave Nights and gave ten solo and duo concerts with international guest artists on viola, cello, guitar, harp and counter tenor to name but a few. She has continued the series in various venues including the Rooftop Bar, Leeds Conservatoire and the exclusive hotel and private members club, The Curtain in Shoreditch.
Philippa has released critically acclaimed recordings for the NMC, Dutton and Nimbus labels. She was appointed Senior Lecture in Violin at Leeds Conservatoire and awarded Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in 2015.
Philippa is also the founding member of the Retorica violin duo:
“The two violins are wielded with enough delicacy and charm to immerse the listener into some really penetrating expression on the vivid scale of a full symphony orchestra” - British Music Society News
“...faultless technique and unfailing insight.” Gramophone Magazine
Retorica have performed worldwide to great acclaim. Highlights include recitals in the most prestigious halls in China, the Beijing NCPA and Shanghai SHAOC, Sweden, Italy, Ukraine, Japan, Germany and the Channel Islands. In the UK their performances include the Barbican Centre, International festivals of Bury St Edmunds and Ripon, Presteigne and the William Alwyn Festival.
Retorica’s debut CD English Violin Duos was chosen as Gramophone Magazine's 'Editor's choice' and the 'must hear' CD for chamber music: "superbly responsive playing .... faultless technique and unfailing insight" . Retorica have also received critical acclaim for their Dutton recording of John McCabe's Double violin concerto and most recently received five stars for their receding of Paul Patterson's Allusions with the English Symphony Orchestra.
Philippa plays a violin by Julius Cesare Gigli from 1786.
