Choral scholarships are an ideal way of combining academic studies with high-caliber choir singing. Each year, Somerville offers around five Choral Scholarships to applicants wishing to read any subject. We are looking for enthusiastic singers with voices in the soprano, alto, contraltos, tenor and bass range to join our choir.  During term time, rehearsals are held on Thursday evenings and regular performances take place each Sunday.  In addition, there will be further performances, both in the college and abroad.  Choral Scholars are expected to be leaders of the choir, both musically and socially, and in return receive generous funding for singing lessons, frequent solo opportunities, and regular free meals.
 
Organ Scholars at Somerville are provided with generous funding for organ and conducting lessons, and are guaranteed rooms in college for the duration of their course.  The primary function of the Organ Scholar is to play the organ and accompany the choir in rehearsals and performances, however, depending on each Organ Scholar's personal priorities, there are opportunities to sing with the choir, direct the choir and experience orchestral conducting.
 
For more information on applying for a Choral or Organ Scholarship, please visit the following part of the University admissions website. If you are interested in applying for a Choral or Organ Scholarship at Somerville, please contact the College’s Director of Chapel Music, Will Dawes, who is very happy to meet with interested parties at any convenient time.

Congratulations to those going to Oxford in October!

​If you've not already lined up a choir to join, then do consider us - we're performing the Mozart Requiem in the Sheldonian this term, and then touring to India in December. You don't have to be studying at Somerville to join us - we've also singers from Brookes as well as non-students regularly singing with us, so do get in touch!

Auditions details here: https://goo.gl/forms/FkYiapO8rBoE7vgU2

We are delighted to announce that Will Dawes is joining Somerville as our new Director of Chapel Music, in succession to Benjamin Goodson, who recently secured the impressive appointment as the new assistant of the chief conductor of the Rundfunkchor Berlin.

Dawes is currently the Director of Music at the church of St Mary Magdalen, Oxford, Conductor of Ensemble 45, Frideswide Voices (Oxford’s first liturgical choir for 7-14 year-old girls), and takes up the position of Director of Chapel Music of Somerville College, Oxford, in January 2017.  He is a graduate of the RAM where he studied Choral Conducting and Singing, and has directed several excellent choral societies and chamber choirs across the UK.

‘I’m thrilled to become Director of Chapel Music at Somerville, and very much looking forward to working with the extremely capable College choir, and continuing the excellent work of my predecessors,’ says Dawes.  ‘Somerville has already proved to me to be an ambitious and welcoming community, and I’m excited to be part of the future of one of Oxford’s most open-minded colleges.’

Alongside his career as a conductor, Will is active as a consort singer and is a member of the internationally acclaimed and multiple-Grammy-nominated vocal ensemble Stile Antico.  The group performs all over the globe, so far including concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall (BBC Proms), over fifty different venues in the USA, as well as Mexico, Portugal, Estonia and Canada. He is a former Lay Clerk of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and has also appeared as part of the Gabrieli Consort, Cardinall’s Musick, Collegium Vocale Gent, and Polyphony.

As a soloist, Will has sung works such as Carmina Burana (Orff), Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Mahler), and The Wound Dresser (Adams) as well as more canonic works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel.  His one and only operatic role to date is that of Mr Gedge in Britten's Albert Herring.

For further information, including forthcoming performances, please visit www.willdawes.co.uk.

Somerville College wishes to appoint a Director of Chapel Music (part time) starting in Michaelmas Term 2016, or as soon as possible thereafter. For further details please see the link below:

Further Particulars for the Post of Director of Chapel Music

The closing date for completed applications is 10am on Monday 3rd October 2016.

On Saturday, 26th April 2014, the Choir of Somerville College will be offering a workshop and a short concert as part of the university's annual Choral Open Day.

At 5pm potential applicants can join our rehearsal with David Crown (Director of Chapel Music) and Robert Pecksmith (Organ Scholar). We will be preparing a concert performance of Fauré's Requiem, which will start at 6:15pm. The concert is open to the public and admission is free.

The workshop and the concert will be an excellent opportunity to work with one of the university's leading mixed-voice college choirs and to find out more about Oxford's only non-denominational chapel. Its interfaith ethos gives the choir a unique advantage: Unlike other Oxbridge choirs, the Choir of Somerville College is not restricted to the Anglican liturgy, but sings a much wider range of sacred choral works from all kinds of religious traditions as well as secular music.

Prospective applicants who want to find out what it's really like to be a choral scholar at Somerville, should read the short profiles of three of our singers. Potential future organ scholars may want to have a look at the organ specification and the sample recordings of the chapel's fine Harrison organ on this page as well as our current organ scholar's website.

Prospective applicants who want to find out more about the Choir of Somerville College can download our leaflet, which will be distributed at the Open Day. If you want to know what it's really like to be a member of our choir, you can read short profiles of three of our singers.