Category: Blog

The end of Trinity term always seems to arrive sooner than expected in Oxford… It’s a term filled with (in no particular order!) revision, exams, concerts, madrigals, balls, dinners, farewells, tears and laughs, work and fun.

The Trinity term is one in which the chapel and choir community really comes together to support each other, to thank one another for the year’s activities and teaching, and to bid farewell to our leavers.

Our final week of term featured four large musical events in chapel: two very different concerts, and two services. Our traditional ‘leavers’ evensong’ was directed by our leaving senior organ scholar, Dan. He led the choir through music by Bairstow (I sat down under his shadow), Howells (Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis Collegium Regale), and Balfour Gardiner (Te Lucis) sung by the combined forces of the mixed and boys’ choir. The final verse of ‘The day thou gavest’ is always something of a moment of realisation for many people that this will be their final service in the stalls. Of course we always enjoy welcoming our former choir members back – you are always part of the choir family and community!

On Monday evening the weather was on our side and our annual ‘Music for a Summer’s Evening’ concert was held in the college grounds by the lake. We may be biased, but we think it is one of the most beautiful settings for this concert anywhere! As the sun starts to sink on a warm and balmy evening, it is the perfect accompaniment to a glass of pimms and some madrigals sung by the mixed choir and the staff choir. This year the mixed choir’s second set featured one of the tenor choral scholars on the appropriately named ‘continuo double bass’ in Rutter’s fun madrigal “It was a lover and his lass”. It has become a tradition that was “the long day closes” the combined forces of the mixed and staff choir join together to perform an item together. The unique addition to this year’s lakeside concert was the occasional bark from Coco, the Provost’s dog, at the end of certain pieces…

Worcester is the only college to have its own staff choir, and it is always a joy to hear how it is developing – there are always new members at each performance as the word spreads!

On Tuesday the boys’ choir sang the final service of the year with their evensong of Batten and plainsong. This was the final service that some of the choristers will sing before they move to new schools at the end of year 8.

To round off the year, all voices were raised in chorus to sing works with the Ensemble 1714, a period string group who joined the choir to perform music by Vivaldi, Handel, and Purcell. As a leaving opportunity, Dan conducted Handel’s Coronation Anthem ‘Let thy hand be Strengthened’, accompanied the Vivaldi’s Magnificat in G minor on the harpsichord and played a Handel keyboard concerto with the strings. Everyone was so proud of his playing and wished him well as he moves to become the organ scholar at Salisbury Cathedral next year.

We have already invited the ensemble back next year for our performance of Messiah in January!

In place of our usual Thursday evening rehearsal, we were able to enjoy chilling out on the college lawns with some refreshments after our final formal hall of term.

Now we have a couple of weeks off before our tour to Southern France – read our next blog to keep up with what we are doing on the road!

 

Recording Blog Day 1

Welcome to our post-term blog post! 

This week we are recording a CD of early 20th century English music in the beautiful 19th Century Exeter College chapel. 

We are very lucky to be joined by a fantastic production and engineering team: the lovely Jon Olive and the charismatic Greg Hallam.

At the end of day we found ourselves ahead of schedule having recorded six pieces, including repertoire by Sir William Henry Harris, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Herbert Howells. 

In addition to this project, the experience of having the choir together for the recording offers the chance for both organised and spontaneous fun. This began with frisbee (and subsequent frisbee fishing from the college lake) during our lunchtime choir picnic. Later we took advantage of the glorious weather (given that we had spent most of the day inside) and engaged in pre-dinner entertainment including an energetic game of sardines, with one of our bass choral scholars, Alex Scott, managing to avoid detection for a whole hour. The evening concluded with an exuberant ping-pong tournament and a movie screening of Bridget Jones’ Diary. We trust that the social festivities will continue throughout the week as we also look forward to singing for a Gaudy in Worcester College later in ninth week.

As well as providing an opportunity to record high quality performances of interesting works (some previously unrecorded), this project has given choral and organ scholars chance to develop their ensemble skills working as a team, and enjoying the opportunity to singing in a new space.

Recording Blog Day 2

As we are blogging, we are now having a well-earned drink in The Lamb and Flag after a hard day’s work of recording. Exeter College chapel is a particularly warm, all the more noticeable when you have spent the whole day recording in there, so the breaths of fresh air between takes and the free time outside are much appreciated. Once again we have had a successful day, with another five pieces in the can. 

As part of today’s blog we ask a few questions to our engineer, Jon Olive.

Tom Allery: It’s been great to welcome you to our college and choir community. Are you enjoying the project as much as we all are?

Jon Olive: Absolutely! Every once in a while a job comes up that turns out to be so rewarding that you would have done it for free. This is honestly one of the most enjoyable jobs I’ve done. I’ve really loved it so far.

TA: What does your role in the recording process involve?

JO: The role of the recording engineer is to capture the sound of the performance in such a way that when someone listens to the CD they get as close as possible to the experience of listening to the ensemble live. I add the finishing touches, including ‘mastering’ it; this is the process of doing subtle editing to ensure that the sound recording works as a CD.

TA: How did you get into sound engineering?

JO: I saw a program on TV about the BBC Radiophonic workshop, which used to be a department in the BBC that specialises in creating sound effects for television, including all the weird sound effects in Doctor Who. After watching this, I realised that this was an industry I wanted to be involved in. I went on to study at the University of Surrey on the Tonmeister course, which offered me a way of developing skills in sound design so that I could pursue it professionally.

TA: Obviously this week you have been working with us on our latest CD, is this your main interest as a sound engineer? What else have you worked on?

JO: Making records is actually a small part of what I do. I’ve done a lot of work in feature film sound design, including working on ‘The Mummy’. One of the sound design moments I’m most proud of in ‘The Mummy’ is at the end of the film when all the soldier mummies march out; I designed the sound for these soldier mummies. I also worked on all the Harry Potter movies, which involved working with the famous composer, John Williams. Another movie I was also a sound editor for the movie ‘Love Actually’. 

Aside from feature films, I have also worked on a variety of projects, with a particular highlight being working on the recording team for Vienna’s New Year’s Day Millennium Concert.

TA: What has been you favourite piece in this project?

JO: My favourite piece would be John Ireland’s ‘Ex Ore Innocentium’. I honestly had a tear in my eye whilst listening to the recording takes. It was absolutely stunning.

Thanks to Jon for letting us interview him. Tomorrow we are looking forward to recording our final pieces for the CD, particularly nailing Howells in G!

 

Welcome to the choir blog in the second week of the University term. This evening the choir sang an Epiphany Carol service and now we are in conversation with tenor choral scholar, Dominic Spencer Jolly.

So Dom, tell us a little about who you are and about your part in the choir…

I am a fourth year chemist and I started in the choir in my first year. I am actually a student at New College but sing in Worcester’s choir.

Tell us a little but about the musical experience you had before University

I starting singing when I was reasonably young. My older sister used to have singing lessons and I often used to jump in at the end of her lessons! I went up the singing grades and sang in a number of choirs. When I was 11 I started at Birmingham Junior Conservatoire and received vocal training there, singing in vocal ensembles. I did a diploma in the year before University and also sang with the National Youth choir.

What attracted you to sing in Worcester College choir?

I applied to Worcester College, and the choral award interviews happen before the academic interviews. I was offered a choral scholarship place but was academically pooled to New College. I decided that I still wanted to sing at Worcester College and here I am! It has been wonderful to make friends in another part of Oxford and be part of such a friendly choir and enjoy making good music.

What makes Worcester choir Worcester Choir?

Surely it is the camaraderie of the members – we all get along really well. Worcester is unique in having two separate choirs, the boys’ choir and the mixed choir. This gives a really good dynamic to the choir. Also, we do some great trips away and tours which really adds to the social element of the choir. Over the summer we went to sing for a few days in Worcester Cathedral which was really good fun. So – the social aspect, really good music, and the unique setup of the choirs.

The other thing about Worcester is that it isn’t a huge choir. I feel as though ever member really counts and it relies on the musical contribution and commitment of all of the members and in everyone getting along. It’s a real team atmosphere; the setup trains you in personal responsibility and it has really improved my sight-singing over the years. On some Mondays we split into consorts and this gives a unique experience for us in services to sing in a small group.

What would you advice would you give to someone aspiring to a choral scholarship?

Train and practice your sight-singing, and get to the stage where you can sing with confidence and musical shape, even in sight-reading. With solo pieces, prepare to bring something to sing that you know really well and do it to your best rather than choosing something really difficult.

What is your favourite piece of repertoire?

It would have to be Parry’s My Soul there is a Country. The different snapshots of images that you get through the setting are wonderful, and I love the structure of piece with its short sections. I recall a particularly poignant performance of the piece this earlier in the year at an important Memorial service in the University Church for a former Worcester Fellow. It just seemed to capture the atmosphere perfectly and I remember my friends in the choir really pulling together to make an incredibly moving performance that day.

What has been your best moment in the choir so far?

It has to be the Puglia tour 2015. There were some really hilarious moments, especially when travelling around in the heat! We stayed in an amazing town, ate some wonderful food, and did some brilliant concerts. For one of them we had to wait 50 minutes to start because we couldn’t start until the Bishop arrived! (laughter…) then we cracked out the Holst Nunc Dimittis which brought the house down after each concert. It was a great tour – we had a great pool to ourselves at the hotel too!

What are you looking forward to in the rest of the year?

I am really looking forward to the Stations of the Cross service at the end of term as I love the music for Lent and Passiontide. At Eastertime we are doing a recording of early 20^th century music with load of great pieces – Howells, Stanford, and Darke.

There are also a couple of Gaudies coming up – these are always good fun. These are occasions when former members of the college are invited to the college for an evensong service and a meal. The choir sings evensong for them and then we have a lovely meal and get to meet former members of the college and choir.

Finally, how would you sum up the choir in three words?

Fizzy, flourishing, and fun, very fun.

Thank you Dom. See you next week!  

 

 

 

 

Welcome back to the Worcester Chapel Choir blog. After a long break over Christmas, we are now at the end of our first week of Hilary Term. The term began with a choral workshop and rehearsal to get us back into gear and now we are preparing for the Epiphany Carol Service next week.

To begin the new term, we caught up with second year organ scholar, Alex Palotai in the college bar after rehearsal to hear about the term ahead and about what it is like to be an organ scholar at Worcester.

So Alex, you are now in your second year at Worcester College. Where were you at school before Oxford? Where did you learn the organ and become interested in choral and church music? 

Well, I grew up in Chelmsford in Essex where I was a chorister in the cathedral choir. I learned the piano there before moving onto the organ not long afterwards (I was always very interested in its sound). For my sixth form, I was an organ scholar at Clifton College in Bristol and I also played at the Cathedral. I guess that it was this combination of places and experiences that started my love of choral and church music.

You had done lots of church music before coming to University. Do you think that it would be possible for people with less experience in cathedral music to become an organ scholar at Worcester College or elsewhere in the University? 

Certainly! Yes! Everyone has a different story to tell and people are from all sorts of different places and have learned in different contexts. An example of someone with a different range of experience before University is our senior organ scholar, Dan. His organ playing before university was in his church and school, where many people learn. Next year he is heading to Salisbury Cathedral to be the organ scholar there. Worcester has a fine tradition of organ scholars heading to prestigious Cathedrals and Abbeys in fact!

We really are a team here, and our Director of Music is very passionate about nurturing everyone’s different skills and using people’s previous experiences to help them develop. So, yes, it is perfectly possible for people with different experiences to confidently apply for organ scholarships. The first year is a year of learning and bringing everyone to the same level, both academically and in chapel. Anyone with the determination can certainly aspire to be fantastic in the role!

How does it work if you would like to put on a specific project or do something different?

It works pretty easily! At the start of each term we meet to discuss what everyone will be doing, and whether anyone would like to develop a specific project or focus. For example this term I am working on conducting, and have several services to conduct throughout the term. Tonight I conducted Haydn’s Little Organ mass with the mixed choir. Sometimes we like to develop organ repertoire projects, or setting up smaller consorts to do larger pieces of music. This term Dan is taking a group through Tallis’s Lamentations for performance with the College music society. Any project is possible if you have the initiative to set it up.

So how do the duties of the scholars differ through the three years? 

In the first year it is a real learning experience. In my first year I did lots of playing and slightly less conducting as I learned the ropes. I found that there was lots to learn in terms of teaching and mentoring the boy choristers, and in particular the probationer or junior choristers. In my second year I have a more equal balance between playing and conducting. In the third year, there is a similar mix but perhaps with a greater sense of responsibility to be in charge in larger services.

Worcester College’s choral setup is busy, with there being two choirs singing four services per week between them. How do you find the schedule as an organ scholar? How do you fit everything in alongside your academic work? 

It is busy! But rewarding too… The terms are eight weeks long but we often come back a week earlier to begin rehearsals with the choristers. That time of preparation is very helpful indeed. I always like to get a head start on the term’s music. Preparation for services makes up a large part of our lives but, yes, equally, our academic work is rigorous too and the tutorial system is hard and rewarding. I would say that as long as you prepare everything in good time, and keep thinking ahead, it is perfectly manageable. In choir rehearsals before services, we always look ahead to music for concerts and future services too.

I am also the organ scholar for the Frideswide Voices girls’ choir this year too so that gives me another service a week to prepare for, and another set of people to work with.

What is the term ahead looking like for you? Do you have any specific projects on? 

I do! I am embarking on learning all of the Bach ‘Allein Gott’ preludes, over this term and next term. As I say, conducting is my real focus this term and I am having lessons with Tom, our Director of Music, and also with Jeremy Summerly from St. Peter’s College.

How do you find working with the two choirs of boys and mixed voices? 

Again—challenging and rewarding. In a way each choir requires different things of us and slightly different skills. With our boy choristers we are teaching them in their school and, especially with the younger ones, really giving them their first steps in musical training. The mixed choir involves working with undergraduate students which feels very different and requires a different approach. Developing this range of skills is very exciting and helpful for the future.

What do you aspire to do after university? 

I would like to continue a career in church music of some sort. Worcester had been a good place to develop the skills required. I hope to go on to an organ scholarship or similar type of position next year.

What advice would you give to prospective organ scholars? 

I would say to keep an open mind and do your homework when looking to apply to colleges. All colleges offer something slightly different. Worcester has been a great environment for me to work in, especially as a place to develop my former skills, but each College has its unique range of opportunities.

Later in term we are holding an open day on which people can find out more about the application process and sing with the choir.

What has been your favourite moment at Worcester so far? 

It would have to be a tie actually! We did a very successful recording with the boys’ choir last year (that was a completely new experience for me as I hadn’t been involved with anything like that before. I played a Bach solo chorale prelude on there and it was a fantastic experience for me to really get to know the whole process of recording). Our next recording will feature Howells in G, one of my favourite canticle settings!

My other favourite thing would have to be trips. In my first year we went to the Italian Riviera on tour and performed in some incredible buildings, and enjoyed some great meals and sightseeing at the same time.

What makes Worcester College different from other colleges as an organ scholar? 

Well, as I have already mentioned, we have lots of scope and support to do different projects. Our link with Christ Church Cathedral School has given me an insight into the school environment. We are all very proud of the opportunity we are offering to the boy choristers and we are looking forward to a reunion of the boys’ choir in the summer. We are a good team here, led by Tom and Matthew and the breadth of different events and music here is unique. I’ve been able to expand all of my skill sets and more, and I feel lucky to be able do different things within our chapel schedule. There is a certainly a lot on here with the chapel and choirs but there is enough space to be able to do things outside of the chapel and put on our own ideas with support. As organ scholars at Worcester, I guess that we also have a good deal of responsibility in working with the boys and students.

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and experiences with us, Alex. Good luck with your Bach this term and we look forward to seeing you conduct in services in the coming weeks.

For more information, visit the pages on our chapel website www.worcesterchapel.co.uk

 

 

 

For choir, the end of another Michaelmas term came crashing towards us with services, concerts and assorted carolling opportunities seeming to snowball all at once. With term finishing so soon in early December, we found ourselves having to roll the Advent and Christmas seasons into the same week. The festivities kicked off on Sunday 27^th November, when the Mixed and Boys’ choirs sang in the most popular service of the year; the Advent Carol Service. Chapel was completely full of friends and family, some of whom queued for what must have seemed like hours in the wintry evening air in to get a good seat. They were rewarded (we hope) with a varied selection of Advent pieces and readings, as well as warming seasonal refreshments afterwards. A highlight for the Mixed Choir was giving the premiere performance of American composer Stewart Duncan’s setting of the carol, There Is No Rose, the winning entry of this year’s Carol Composition Competition.

Fortunately, the piece got a second outing a few days later at our Christmas Concert of Carols and Readings. This time we joined forces with the Staff Choir, combining for one carol as well as for the congregational hymns, sang with gusto by those in another packed out Chapel. This, the penultimate duty of term for the Mixed Choir, was followed by our Christmas dinner in Hall, where, in keeping with tradition, we entertained the paper hat-clad masses with a few light hearted carols in between courses. The festivities continued into the evening with our end of term choir party, courtesy of the senior organ scholar and his large room, which kept us in good spirits till our final engagement of term: a Community Carol Service for members, alumni and friends of the College on Saturday 3^rd December.

If you were unfortunate enough to miss all of these festive events, or even if you attended them all but still haven’t had your fill of sound of Worcester College Chapel Choir, fear not! In late November we were excited to announce the release of the newest Boys’ Choir CD, “O Sing Joyfully”. Featuring a medley of music for the service of evensong, including pieces by Sumsion, Bairstow, Chilcott, Bach and Mendelssohn, these make a perfect Christmas present for fans of choral and organ music, or anyone with a link to College. With copies selling fast, order yours soon from the College Lodge (01865 278300) or by emailing the Director of Music at thomas.allery@worc.ox.ac.uk.

Updates of our various antics will continue in the new term, but for now, from all of us in the choirs and Chapel of Worcester College, we wish you a merry Christmas and a very happy new year!

Hopefully the loyal followers of this blog will have correctly assumed that the delay in publishing this, the fourth entry, has been caused by a packed out and exciting choir schedule (as well as the odd essay getting in the way). The past three weeks have seen the Mixed Choir tackle a performance of Oscar winning composer Rachel Portman’s canticles during an Evensong which she attended; a Requiem Mass for All Souls; and two joint evensongs with St Peter’s College Chapel Choir and the Chamber Choir of Canford School respectively, alongside all our usual chapel commitments. However, two external events stand out as highlights in what has been a busy term so far.

On Wednesday of 6^th week, members of the Mixed Choir were escorted by Oxford Tube to London by our resident grown-up: Martin, a Computer Science DPhil student [Ha! “Grown up” – Ed.]. The ensuing battle with Stagecoach and the actual tube was eventually won, with the choir arriving only 40 minutes late to rehearsal in the beautiful Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy. The concert, featuring a variety of music for the season of Remembrance including Fauré’s Requiem, was completely sold out some days beforehand, perhaps due to the success of our concert in the same venue almost exactly a year ago. There was particularly strong representation from the staff of Give a Kidney – One’s Enough, who we serenaded on the occasion of their charity’s 5^th birthday (at the urging of the concert organiser). 20 hurried pizzas and a well-received concert later, and it was back home to Oxford. Till next time, Brandenburg Choral Festival!

The demand for Worcester College Choirs from external venues continued this week with the Boys’ Choir day out to sing evensong at Worcester Cathedral, a particular favourite of choir since our #worc2worc trip there for a few days this August. With music by Sumsion and Britten (on what would have been the latter’s 103^rd birthday), evensong was very well-received and enjoyed by all, particularly the boys who had the afternoon off school (always a bonus) despite having to travel in the minibus while the choral scholars took the luxury of the train. All in all it provided a great trip out, bringing to a close this term’s series of choir ‘on the road’ trips.

 

 

 

 

 

So, here we go…let’s find out what the choral scholars get up to during an average week…in photos!

And now for some photos of all the random things the choir get up to during the year…