Cellist Ella Rundle offers Wemsfest concert

Performing as The Rundle-Frank Duo, they perform from 7.30pm-9.30pm at Waterside Church, Bath Road, Emsworth, offering a programme of symphonic music on just eight strings.

“As members of the BBC Concert Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra respectively we are incredibly passionate about symphonic music and want to bring it to audiences around the country,” says Ella, who grew up in West Dean.

“We will be playing the Stravinsky Pulcinella Suite, a work originally written for symphony orchestra, and Bach double concerto also for full orchestra on just the eight strings of our violin and cello.

“The amazing thing about these arrangements is that we can take these magnificent works from the concert hall setting and perform them anywhere.

“It’s a great way to hear them in an intimate setting, be it in a church or a neighbour’s living room.

“The score for the Stravinsky was actually gifted to us from a friend who had found someone to annotate it down from a very old recording!

“It’s such a great arrangement and we can’t wait to share it with our audience.”

Ella and Nathaniel, who became parents in the first week of lockdown last year, married around three years ago having met in the Philharmonia before Nathaniel moved to the BBC Concert Orchestra.

The Stravinsky annotation was a piece they picked up during lockdown.

“We originally started as a duo as a bit of fun,

“But we did a little recording of one of the movements of the Stravinsky for the Philharmonia to help raise some money because they were worried that orchestras would start folding during the lockdowns.

“They put the recording up and we got a lot of nice comments and views.

“And so we started thinking that maybe it was something that we could pursue a bit more.

“There is a lot of music in the big cities, but we thought we could bring these great works to places outside London so that people didn’t necessarily have to pay to travel and have all the expenses of going to London and so that they could get to know these great works, hearing them in pared-down versions. That’s what we are hoping we might be able to do.

“Wemsfest is well known for its jazz concerts but they are also trying to keep a classical thread going every year as well.

“We want to get the word out there that you don’t have to go to a big fancy concert hall to hear great music.

“We are bringing right to your doorstep in ever new and exciting forms!”