Boosey and Hawkes HPS 1446 - James MacMillan Britannia was written in 1994 as a celebration of a major force in our musical life, the British orchestra. The work fulfils a commission from British Telecommunications plc with the Association of British Orchestras as part of the BT Celebration Series, and provides all the major UK orchestras with a new concert overture for performance in the 1994/95 season. Britannia is a ten-minute orchestral fantasy based on ‘patriotic themes’.