On Saturday the Choir of Somerville College will be singing a concert at Douai Abbey to celebrate the launch of our new album Advent Calendar.

The first half of the concert consists of a selection of seasonal anthems by Victoria, Pärt, Wood, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Rutter as well as organ music by Messiaen. The second half will be a performance of Fauré's Requiem. The concert will feature soloists Mary-Louise Aitken (soprano) and Robert Pecksmith (organ), who can also be heard on our new CD. We are looking forward to returning to Douai Abbey, where we recorded our first CD Requiem æternam in July 2011.

Saturday 30 November 2013, 7:45pm, Douai Abbey
Fauré's Requiem and a selection of seasonal anthems
The Choir of Somerville College, Oxford
David Crown, conductor
Mary-Louise Aitken, soprano
Thomas Guthrie, baritone
Robert Pecksmith, organ

Tickets: £10 (£7 concessions) from Newbury Corn Exchange

Click here to download the full programme.

On Wednesday at 8pm Somerville's choral scholars will present From Purcell to 'Show Boat', an eclectic programme of songs, arias and duets by Händel, Mozart, Gluck, Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Andrew Lloyd Webber and many others.

Soloists:
Ruth Akinradewo (soprano), James Aldred (tenor), Ian Buchanan (tenor), Katie Jeffries-Harris (mezzo-soprano), Joanna Perkins (soprano), Isabel Sinagola (mezzo-soprano), Alexandra Worrell (soprano), Emily Winkler (soprano)

Accompanists:
Kaan Harwood, Douglas Knight, Joanna Perkins, Robert Pecksmith

Click here to download the programme. Admission is free with a retiring collection in aid of Somerville Choir's US tour.

This musical advent calendar from Oxford University's leading mixed-voice college choir is our second release on the Stone Records label, following a highly successful recording of Duruflé’s Requiem and Milford’s Mass for Five Voices. 

The beautifully-presented album is a countdown to Christmas of 24 tracks (with a bonus track for Christmas Day) featuring wonderful performances of some of the best-loved carols of all time, and a handful of première recordings that will delight all classical music lovers. Each Advent Sunday is marked by a Bach chorale, and the listener is guided through Advent, as the excitement builds for the arrival of Christmas Day. The track list includes favourite carols by Rutter, Warlock, Poston, Gardner, Cornelius, Goldschmidt and Wood as well as newly commissioned works by Toby Young, Raymond Head and Paul Sartin (member of the folk band Bellowhead).

The Choir of Somerville College, conducted by David Crown, is joined by guest soloists Mary-Louise Aitken (soprano) and Jeremy Carpenter (baritone), who was most recently seen in the Royal Opera House's production of Britten's Gloriana. They are accompanied by Robert Pecksmith (organ), Douglas Knight (organ) and Keith Fairbairn (percussion).

The album will be released on 4 November 2013 (UK) and 12 November 2013 (USA and other countries). Advent Calendar is available for purchase from Amazon UK, Amazon US, Presto Classical, Stone Records and Blackwell's Music (Broad Street, Oxford). Please see our discography for a full track list. A promotional video is available from YouTube.

Robert Pecksmith will be playing a recital of rarely heard twentieth-century works on the new Kenneth Tickell organ at Keble College Chapel on Thursday evening.

The programme consists of Arvo Pärt's Annum per annum, the Adagio from Vierne's Organ Symphony No. 3 and Messiaen's L'Apparition de l'église éternelle.

Keble Chapel Compline Recital Series: Robert Pecksmith (Somerville)
Thursday 7th November 2013, 8:30pm, Keble College Chapel

Admission is free. See his website and the Facebook event page for more details.