Cellophonics offer Valentine's concert in Chichester

Ben Rogerson, who grew up in Chichester and is the son of the long-serving former Chichester Festival Theatre general manager Paul, combines with Christopher Allan, Michael Atkinson and Adrian Bradbury in the quartet. On February 14 at 7.30pm in St John's Church, Chichester, they will offer music including J S Bach, Guy Barker, Puccini and Piazzolla. Tickets £17, seniors £7, are available from The Novium, Tower Street, Chichester, PO19 1QH Monday-Saturday 10am-5pm; Sunday 10am-4pm; also 01243 816525; [email protected]; thenovium.org/boxoffice.

It's a first tour for the four of them: “We have been going for quite a long time but in a very gentle way,” says Ben. “And now we are actually doing a tour, a mini-tour. We're going to Dublin and we're going up to the Lake District and we're playing Walton on Thames and Chichester and Stroud, our first tour. We played in the Festival of Chichester not last year but the summer before and that was our first proper event. It went very well and we were greatly encouraged by the lovely people that came and supported us, and someone suggested that we should play the cathedral! But she said ‘Can you think of anything more romantic than seeing four cellists on Valentine's Day?’ So that's what we are doing! We have commissioned a number of works from composers and on this occasion we're going to play a quartet that we commissioned during lockdown from Guy Barker. Guy is big in the jazz world. He's a jazz legend as a trumpeter and I know him through my work with the BBC Concert Orchestra. He was for several years our composer in residence and we did a lot of stuff with him. He has a classical bent to his composing. He has written violin concertos and he's done all sorts of serious stuff but we asked him if he would stay in the jazz world for us. He has written a piece inspired by trains, American trains, the trains that are like a mile long. One of them is called The Big Ugly which slowly goes up a mountainside.

“And we have also discovered a cello quartet by the English composer York Bowen. It is a dance suite, a lot like Bach. He died in 1961 and he rather pushed the harmonies. He was another indulger in naughty harmonies rather like Guy Barker is now! But I found this piece among my grandfather’s library of music. My grandfather was a cellist, Haydn Rogerson, and I don't think this piece has been performed for decades. Sadly my grandfather died before I was born so I never met him but he was quite an eminent cellist. He came down to London in 1940s and he was principal with the Philharmonia.”

Ben is a member of the BBC Concert Orchestra and the London Mozart Players. He spent the noughties with the Irish Chamber Orchestra giving concerts with artists including Maxim Vengerov, Anthony Marwood and Nigel Kennedy.