Ensemble in Residence
Music at Oxford
The Marian Consort is Ensemble in Residence with Music at Oxford across 2023 and 2024. Working in partnership, our residency will encompass performance, commissioning and creative engagement work.
Performance
We’ll give a number of performances in Oxford across the residency, showcasing our commissiong and creative engagement work, with music from Caroline Shaw to Vicente Lusitano, and William Byrd to Electra Perivolaris.
On the outside, looking in (May 2023) A programme exploring common ground between the marginalised voices of the past alongside contemporary responses. The music of Renaissance nun Raffaella Aleotti, who was described as ‘not human, but truly an angelic spirit’, is heard alongside works by Vicente Lusitano, who while known principally in his lifetime as a music theorist is also notable for being the first published black composer. Also featured is the music of William Byrd in this his anniversary year: the searing emotion of Byrd’s extraordinary vocal chamber music was the result of his ardent Catholic beliefs, something which made him an outsider in Protestant Elizabethan England. Threaded between these are new works from some of the most exciting emerging women composers which serve to interrogate and re-imagine their Renaissance counterparts.
Delighting the People: A Jacobean Christmas (December 2023) A festive programme that features early English composers at their most unbuttoned and celebratory, with music written for the famously festive Stuart court. Alongside these are more intimate, introspective sacred works by a golden age of English composers – Byrd, Gibbons, Weelkes and Bull – that in some cases belie their creators’ often colourful personal lives. The Jericho Youth Choir and St Barnabas Choristers will be join us for three pieces as part of With One Voice, our creative engagement programme running as part of the residency. Buy tickets.
The Language of Flowers (March 2024) This exploration of flowers and gardens, both actual and allegorical, combines settings of the Song of Songs and its evocation of a luscious, fertile landscape by Spanish composers of the late Renaissance with Benjamin Britten’s five playful Flower Songs. Two new commissions frame the second half of the programme: Laura Cannell brings together the influences of early, folk and experimental music in an exploration of plant lore (knowledge of plants gained through tradition or anecdote, much like folk lore), while Leo Chadburn’s new work is inspired by Floriography (cryptological communication through the use or arrangement of flowers). Buy tickets.
With One Voice
A long-term collaboration offering singing and creative opportunities to young people in Jericho, Oxford. Bringing together multiple local partners — St. Barnabas C of E Primary School, St. Barnabas Church, Jericho Youth Choir, St. Barnabas Choristers — and facilitated by Music at Oxford, The Marian Consort will work with young people to offer performance opportunities, and with local artists from across disciplines to deliver co-creative music workshops.
Enriching, enlightening, and entertaining, Music at Oxford’s mission is to create and curate eclectic series of high-quality events and projects in and around Oxford for the enjoyment of all.
Founded in 1983 and incorporated in 1984, Music at Oxford collaborates with internationally renowned musicians to create powerful performances in the inspiring buildings and spaces of the Oxford city region.
Music at Oxford celebrating its 40th anniversary across 2023 and 2024.
