Oxford’s premier mixed voice choir
BEETHOVEN, MISSA SOLEMNIS, SHELDONIAN THEATRE, OXFORD, 5PM, SUNDAY 12TH MARCH
Tickets are now on sale at TicketsOxford https://www.ticketsoxford.com/events/beethoven-missa-solemnis for our performance of Beethoven’s late masterpiece, Missa Solemnis. This monumental work was to have been performed by OBC in March 2020, cancelled with hours to go because of the Covid-19 lockdown. We are delighted to be performing this with the orchestra from three years ago, the London Mozart Players and two of the original soloists. Benjamin Nicholas will conduct. Further details below.
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CAROLS FOR ALL
Thank you to everyone who performed in our Carols for All celebration of Christmas, at the Sheldonian Theatre on Saturday 17th December. The standard of performance by Oxford City Young Singers, the Youth Choir, and Brass Ensemble was truly excellent, and our capacity audience was enthusiastic in its support – and its singing! After the disruption of the past two seasons, it was lovely to be able to return to perform this festive favourite.
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VAUGHAN WILLIAMS’ 150th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT – A SELL OUT SUCCESS
Thank you to everyone who made our concert to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams such a success, in front of a capacity audience at the Sheldonian on Saturday 3rd December. Professor Dan Grimley introduced the three works, before the Philharmonia, conducted by Benjamin Nicholas, began the evening with a wonderful rendition of Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. The Merton College Girl Choristers joined the OBC, with soloists Katherine Crompton (standing in at the last minute for the indisposed Alish Tynan), tenor Ruairi Bowen, and baritone Gareth Brynmor John, in Sancta Civitas, first performed in the Sheldonian by the Oxford Bach Choir almost a century ago. The concert concluded with the composer’s foreboding of conflict again in Europe, his 1936 Dona Nobis Pacem, as relevant today as when it was written. A great evening!
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WATCH OUR ONLINE CONCERT IN THE TIME OF COVID
Our concert of French choral music from the Sheldonian Theatre last season, the first in our 125th Anniversary Season, can be seen free at www.positivenote.co.uk/oxford-bach-choir. Oxford Bach Choir was conducted by Benjamin Nicholas, and Robert Quinney was the organist. Rebecca McNaught (cello), Lila Chrisp (mezzo) and Ben Davies (bass) were soloists in Duruflé mid-20th century, Requiem. The concert began with Fauré, Cantique de Jean Racine, and includes the Oxford Professor of Poetry, Alice Oswald, reading a sonnet by John Donne and reflecting on the impact of the pandemic. This was a fundraising concert for Oxford hospitals.
