Somerville College Choir will be hosting a 24-Hour Music Marathon in the College Chapel this Friday and Saturday, in order to raise funds for its tour to India, taking place in December.

Featuring performances by members of Somerville College, the marathon will incorporate a wide variety of musical styles, ranging from jazz standards to organ symphonies, from an open-mic session and lute songs. The final running order will be confirmed here and on Facebook on Thursday evening.
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Entry will be by donation, with all the money raised going towards the tour more details of which can be found here. If you can't attend in person, do check out the live stream.

Schedule

Friday 12th October
2pm-3pm - Opening Concert (featuring the full choir and solo recitals)
3pm-4:20pm - Solo Singing Recital (featuring members of the choir)
4:20pm-5:45pm - Instrumental Concert (featuring marimba, percussion, lute and recorder duets, and organ works)
5:45pm-7pm - Instrumental Recital (featuring clarinet, voice and piano)
7pm-8pm - Chinese Instruments Concert
8pm-9pm - Organ recital, performed by the college's two organ scholars
9pm-9:40pm - Lute Song Recital (featuring members of the choir accompanied by Quentin Miller)
9:40pm-10:10pm - Song Recital: Director of Chapel Music Will Dawes sings Finzi's Earth, Air and Rain
10:30pm-11pm - Jazz Standards (performed by choir members Max and Eloise)
11pm-12am - Piano recital (featuring works by Granados, Makholm and Beethoven)

Saturday 13th October
12am-12:30am - Gu-qin Music (performed by Xiaoyi Ouyang)
12:30am-7am - Various piano music throughout the night (performed by Alastair Flynn, Andrei Diaconu, Xiaoyi Ouyang, Aidan Quinlan, Robin Leach, Jack Pegg, Ilona Clayton and Joel Summerfield)
7am-7:35am - Instrumental Recital by Andy Wang and Emma Line
7:35am-9am - Leanne Yau performs various pop, acoustic and folk songs accompanied by guitar
9am-9:30am - Trumpet Duets (performed by Aidan Quinlan and Ellen King)
9:30am -10am - Organ Recital by Rory Moules
10am-11am - Singthrough of European Sacred Music, led by Will Dawes
11am - 12pm - Singthrough of Popular Songs from the Musicals
12pm-1pm - Piano Recital by Marianna Kapsetaki (featuring 10 Preludes, op. 23, by Rachmaninoff)
1pm-2pm - Closing Recital, featuring the full choir and solo works including Dichterliebe (performed by Will Dawes) and Frauenliebe und -leben (performed by Georgie Malcolm)

​Click here to download a PDF file of the full programme detailing the specific performers and repertoire in each recital.

Don't miss the choir's last public performance this term, in concert alongside the Somerville College Orchestra.

The concert features a programme ranging from Eric Whitacre's gorgeous Five Hebrew Love Songs to Johann Sebastian Bach's timeless Double Violin Concerto.

Thursday 9th March 2017, 7:30pm
Somerville College Chapel

Entry is free and there will be a drinks reception after the concert. Click here to see the Facebook event page.

On Saturday 26th November 2016 at 7:15pm the Choir and Orchestra of Somerville College, Oxford, will be performing Haydn's Symphony No. 88 in G major and Vivaldi's Gloria at Somerville Chapel. The concert will be conducted by Hilary Davan Wetton, Somerville's Senior Music Associate and Interim Director of Chapel Music.

Somerville College Orchestra
Violin: Saffiyah Keig-Momin, Andy Wang, Hannah Thompson, Robert Harvey Wood, Jessica Crompton, Imogen Lawlor, Madeleine Eastwood, Victoria Gill, Eloise Kenny Rider
Viola: Colin Albery, Claire Valence
Cello: Amanda Thomas, Emily Hill, Shivake Shar
Flute: Catrin Haberfield, Sati Aizawa, Emma Line
Oboe: Emma Butterworth, Benjamin Skipp
Bassoon: Hannah Sowter, Nicola Ede
Horn: Robert Kirk, Bradley Young
Trumpet: Harry McSwaine, Aidan Quinlan
Timpani: Giordan Price
Harpsichord: Nick Machin (Organ Scholar)

The Choir of Somerville College, Oxford
Soprano: Anna Bett, Hannah Sowter, Yolanda Shamash, Alexandra Worrell, Carys Miller, Eleanor Parker, Ruth Akinradewo, Katie Bastiman, Natasha Frank, Eloise Kenny-Ryder, Eve Althaus
Alto: Emily Albery, Saffiyah Keig-Momin, Elizabeth Bosson, Amanda Thomas
Tenor: Joshua Grubb, Jamie Powe, Finn Strivens, Owen Thomas
Bass: Samuel Bruce, Giordan Price, Robert Harvey Wood, Aidan Quinlan

For the final concert of the Brandenburg Choral Festival of London’s 2016 Autumn Series, Benjamin Goodson's two choirs, the Lea Singers and the Choir of Somerville College, Oxford, will be joining forces for a concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London.

Tallis’ epic 40-part motet Spem in alium will be at the heart of this programme, and is always all the more memorable when sung in the atmospheric surroundings of a candlelit St. Martin’s. This performance will be framed by Schubert’s glorious Mass in G, and four choral gems by Bruckner and Brahms.

This concert will last approximately one hour without an interval. A combined ticket offer is available for this concert and the earlier performance at St Martin’s. Please contact the box office for details.

Thursday 17 November 2016, 9:30pm, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London
'Spem in alium' by candlelight
Works by Schubert, Tallis, Bruckner and Brahms
The Choir of Somerville College, Oxford
The Lea Singers
Michael Papadopoulos, organ
Benjamin Goodson, conductor

Click here to book tickets.

On Thursday 26th May at 7.30pm the Choir of Somerville College will give a concert of British and American choral music in Somerville’s Chapel.

The concert is eclectic, paying tribute to the diversity of the choral repertoire to have emerged from these two countries. The programme begins with music from the English Renaissance and ends with brand new music from some of America’s most exciting contemporary composers. All proceeds will count towards the choir’s fundraising efforts for their upcoming concert tour to New York and Washington in September 2016.

Please join us! 

Thursday 26th May, 7:30pm
Somerville College Chapel
 
Tickets from carys.miller@some.ox.ac.uk

Full programmes of all our six concerts and services in America are now available for download from the tour page.

In the first week of July we will be going on our most ambitious foreign tour so far: We will be performing three full-length evening concerts, two services and one organ recital in churches and cathedrals in Washington D.C., Delaware and Massachusetts.

Details of all our performances in the USA are now listed on the tour page. Full programmes and publicity material will be added to the page over the course of the next few weeks.

The concerts and services will feature 20 members of the Choir of Somerville College, David Crown (conductor) and Robert Smith (organist).

This US tour, which we have been organising since last summer, was made possible by the generous support of Somerville College and our friends.

On Friday at 6pm the Choir of Somerville College and Somerville Music Society will be presenting West End Favourites and Film Music, a gala concert in aid of the choir's US tour.

Members of the Choir of Somerville College, Robert Smith (organ/piano) and special guest star David Crown (baritone) perform a selection of favourite show tunes and film music. The concert features extracts from The Phantom of the Opera, West Side Story, Cats, Star Wars and Show Boat as well as 'One Day More', the rousing finale from Act I of Les Misérables. See the Facebook event for full details of the programme.

Performers:
Ruth Akinradewo (soprano), Ian Buchanan (tenor), David Crown (baritone/conductor), Katie Jeffries-Harris (mezzo-soprano), Matt Kerr (baritone), Douglas Knight (piano). Christoph Schnedermann (bass), Stefan Schwarz (baritone), Robert Smith (organ/piano), Alexandra Worrell (soprano), Emily Winkler (soprano), Orly Watson (piano)

Admission is free. There will be a retiring collection in aid of the choir's summer tour.

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 Smith (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 scholat 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.

At the end of Hilary Term the choir will be singing two performances of Johann Sebastian Bach's Johannes-Passion, BWV 245. The concerts will feature the Musicians of the Dreaming Spires, an Oxford-based professional chamber orchestra, and soloists from the Royal College of Music, London. Tickets (£10) are available from our online ticket shop.

Click here to download the programme.

1st Performance:
Friday 14th March 2014, 7:45pm, St Mary Magdalene Church, Woodstock
Click here to buy tickets

2nd Performance:
Sunday 16th March 2014, 7pm, Somerville College Chapel, Oxford
Click here to buy tickets

The Choir of Somerville College, Oxford
Musicians of the Dreaming Spires
Robert Smith, organ/harpsichord
David Crown, conductor

Soloists: William Wallace (tenor - Evangelist), Simon Grange (bass - Christus), Rebecca Hardwick (soprano), Victoria Pym (mezzo-soprano), Joseph Doody (tenor), Jerome Knox (baritone)