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Retorica is a violin duo formed in 2007 by Philippa Mo and Harriet MacKenzie.

Mo and Mackenzie met at the Royal Academy of Music in London and discovered a shared passion for contemporary music as well as the wealth of rarely heard repertoire for two violins. A violin duo is considered to be a rare ensemble but Retorica are becoming known for their commitment to establishing the genre

Since they started performing together, highlights of their performing schedule include recitals at the Barbican Centre as part of the Park Lane Young Artists Series Mostly Mozart Festival, at Goldsmith's Centre for Russian Music, St George's Brandon Hill, Bristol, the Barber Institute, Birmingham and the Dora Stoutzker Hall, Cardiff. At the 2D2N Festival of Contemporary Music in Odessa, Retorica performed seven new commissions by leading British composers. In 2011, Retorica toured China including concerts at the Beijing National Center of the Arts (NCPA) and Shanghai Oriental Art Center. In 2012 Retorica broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 In Tune and were artists in residence for the 2012 Presteigne festival city tour

Music has been written for and dedicated to the duo by John McCabe (composer), Paul Pellay, Jim Aitchison, Robert Fokkens, Ben Ellin, Owen Bourne, David Matthews (composer), Sadie Harrison and Dmitri Smirnov (composer). As well as this new repertoire, Retorica perform duos by Mozart, Haydn, Jean-Marie Leclair, Henryk Wieniawski, Alan Rawsthorne, Eugène Ysaÿe, Prokofiev, Ligeti, Telemann, George Frideric Handel, Gorecki, Honegger, and also their arrangements of Bach Inventions and the famous folk-derived duos by Bartok.

In 2012 their debut CD 'English Duos' was released by the NMC Recordings label and they performed a launch concert at LSO St Luke’s which included a pre-concert talk with John McCabe (composer), Jim Aitchison and David Matthews (composer). The CD programme features the Sonata for Two Violins by Ernest Moeran. Retorica’s recording was the first commercially available recording of this major work.

In 2012 Retorica also recorded John McCabe's double concerto Les Martinets Noirs with Orchestra Nova conducted by George Vass, released on the Dutton label.