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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Choir of Somerville College is busy fundraising for what will be the choir’s most ambitious tour to date. In September we plan to travel to New York City and Washington DC to give concerts, workshops and sing services. The tour comes on the back of a hugely successful first year under the directorship of Benjamin Goodson: we have performed a sold-out performance of Bach’s John Passion, while upcoming plans include a concert of Anglo-American music and a performance of Tallis’s Spem in Alium at one of London’s most prestigious venues, St Martin-in-the-Fields. The choir is going from strength to strength, and we are sure that now is the time to showcase this special choir to new audiences on the other side of the Atlantic!
 
We need to fundraise to get us there. The choir has already been working hard at this, by raising money through concerts and events. This term in particular we have hosted an American themed bake-sale, an open-mic night and as a choir we have busked on the streets of Oxford. In addition, each member of the choir will be contributing towards the cost of the tour. But we now need your help!
 
To get us over the finish line we are using Somerville’s crowdfunding platform to collect donations towards our cause. We would be extremely grateful for any donation, big or small, which will help us get to New York. If we manage to exceed our target, your donations will still be worthwhile, as it will go towards subsiding the individual contributions for members of the choir who would otherwise struggle to pay for it.
 
Donations can be made here: https://somerville.hubbub.net/p/choirtour2016
 
From all of us, thank you very much in advance for your generosity.

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

We are delighted to announce a very special concert in the college chapel at 7pm on Tuesday 8th March 2016 followed by a drinks reception.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750):
Johannes-Passion, BWV 245

The Choir of Somerville College, Oxford
Soloists: Nick Pritchard (Evangelist/tenor), Giles Underwood (Jesus/bass), Robyn Allegra Parton (soprano), Katie Jeffries-Harris (alto)
Orchestra led by Bojan Čičić
Conductor: Benjamin Goodson

The concert features some of the best Baroque players in the country, who play in the Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and others. We have a professional line up of soloists, and also one of the college’s most talented young singers Katie Jeffries-Harris, who will sing the alto arias.

There will be no charge for the evening but there will be a retiring collection.
Tickets will not be required, but if you definitely plan to come it would help us very much with numbers if you could let us know by emailing carys.miller@some.ox.ac.uk.

A message from the Principal:

I am delighted to announce that Benjamin Goodson is joining Somerville as our new Director of Chapel Music, in succession to David Crown who has moved on after eight very successful years at Somerville.

Ben is a gifted musician and experienced choir conductor.   He studied originally at Hertford College and quickly built up an impressive career, as – among other  posts – music director of the Bath Camerata and (his most recent appointment) chorus master at the Dorset Opera Festival.  His biography can be found here.  Ben will be spending a few days each week in college.  He has already carried out the auditions for choral scholars, and will be sending out a notice very shortly to invite people to audition for the college choir.  I know he has exciting plans, and I look forward very much to hearing the choir go on from strength to strength under his leadership.

Please join me in welcoming Benjamin Goodson to Somerville.

With all best wishes,

Alice Prochaska