O'Connell Turner Cello Harp Duo Clare O'Connor and Eleanor Turner
Thursday 11th May at 7.30
Towards Light: an evening of luminous music for cello and harp, taking you on a journey towards light.
Eleanor Turner (harp) and Clare O’Connell (cello) will perform an evocative programme exploring themes of darkness, reflection and light including works by JS Bach, Arvo Pärt, Claude Debussy, Astor Piazzolla and Alex Mills, whose piece, Zenith, depicts the highest point reached by a heavenly body, the sun, at the Summer Solstice.
The O’Connell Turner Duo is an exquisite meeting of cello and harp in the hands of two devoted musicians. Clare O’Connell and Eleanor Turner have combined forces to explore their unique sound world, creating music old and new, classical and contemporary, inspired by influences from many different traditions including classical, renaissance, rāga and Scottish folk. Renowned soloists, they got together as a duo shortly before the first lockdown.
Eleanor Turner is a passionate ambassador for the harp and its music. She is an international prize-winning artist who has performed everywhere from Shanghai to New Orleans and is a leading expert in contemporary music. She has released classical discs on Champs Hill Records, Decca, Naxos and her own label, Arts in Fusion, and appears on three acclaimed albums with Grammy-nominated British vocal ensemble Voces8. Eleanor wowed audiences as a soloist at last year's Thistleton Music Festival and we look forward to welcoming her back as part of this fabulous duo.
Cellist Clare O’Connell is a performer, arranger and curator. She is passionate about creating new music and finding new ways to hear old music. Her debut solo album The Isolated Cellist, a collection of ancient & modern music for solo and layered cello, was released in April 2021. She graduated from Wadham College, Oxford followed by postgraduate study at the Royal College of Music & the Hochshule für Künste in Bremen, Germany with internationally acclaimed cellist and teacher Alexander Baillie.
