About Keble
Music at Keble
The College Chapel is perhaps the grandest ecclesiastical space in Oxford. Its resonant, cathedral-like acoustic is much in demand for concerts and recordings, and is home to a lively and active music foundation in which the Chapel Choir plays a primary role. It is also the main focal point for regular concerts promoted by the student-run Keble College Music Society, organ recitals, and the annual Keble Early Music Festival which takes place each February.
Keble College Chapel Choir
‘The choir is a fine, well-trained and balanced body’ (Early Music Review)
‘… eager and engaging performances… this is an immensely enjoyable recording’ (Gramophone)
‘Lively and convincing… excellently performed’ (Choir & Organ)
Singing with Keble College Chapel Choir provides a unique and varied musical experience, and a solid choral grounding for life. The choir consists of approximately twenty-six undergraduates and postgraduates, and some are students at other colleges.
The main function of the choir is to sing the weekly services in addition to special events such as the Christmas Services and College feasts. Details the term’s sung services can be found in the Chapel Music List:
During Full Term the choir sings three choral services per week: Sung Eucharist on Sunday at 5.30pm followed by Formal Hall, Evensong on Tuesdays at 6pm, and Sung Compline on Thursdays at 9pm. The choir rehearses every Thursday from 5.00-6.30pm. Then there are additional services during the course of the year, plus involvement in various College events, particularly at Christmas.
Choral Scholarships and Graduate Choral Assistant opportunities
The College offers a number of Choral and Organ scholarships. Organ scholarship applicants must apply to read Music, although choral scholars read a wide range of subjects, including Music. Choral award holders all receive regular vocal tuition and participate in masterclasses with distinguished singers and coaches, and organ scholars benefit from instrumental, conducting and vocal tuition. A number of our recent scholars have gone on to sing with groups such as Genesis Sixteen and the Voces8 Scholars, and are beginning to develop their freelance careers.
The choir also offers a number of graduate places, both as choral scholars and paid positions as Graduate Choral Assistants. Applications are still open for a tenor for the academic year 2026-27 – for more information and to apply for an audition please contact music@keble.ox.ac.uk. We’d be delighted to hear from those interested in a Graduate Choral Assistant position for 2027-28. Applications for next year will open formally in Summer 2027, with auditions taking place during July and September prior to the start of the academic year in October.
The choir always welcomes enquiries to music@keble.ox.ac.uk from singers and organists relating to future years, or from those interested in joining the deputy list. Please also get in touch if you would like to take part in a taster evensong before applying, or you can also take part in the University’s centralised Choral and Organ Award Open Day (upcoming: 24 April 2027).
All choral services at Keble are livestreamed. These can be found at the Chapel’s YouTube channel, together with a number of other videos reflecting chapel and musical life. Keble Choir can also be found on Facebook and Instagram, with regular updates of the choir’s activities and recent musical extracts.
Photo by Hugh Warwick, 2026
Keble Choir and the Early Music Festival
The choir plays a major part in the annual Keble Early Music Festival, a highlight of the next festival being a performance of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, on 27 February 2027. Performances in recent years include Purcell’s Fairy Queen and Dido and Aeneas, Handel’s Acis and Galatea, and Bach’s St John Passion.
Tours and concerts
We regularly undertake tours abroad, as well as concerts within the UK. In the past few years we have travelled to Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore, the USA, Italy, Sweden and France. In Summer 2027, the choir travels to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Closer to home, we have featured in the Cheltenham International Festival of Music, the Edington Arts Festival and the Oxford International Song Festival, as well as various concerts in the Chapel throughout the year.
CDs, recordings and broadcasts of Keble College Chapel Choir
Keble Choir are regularly to be heard on BBC Radio 3, most recently in two broadcasts of Compline, broadcast in December 2025 and March 2026. A special Choral Evensong marking 150 years since Keble College Chapel was built was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Wednesday 10th June and Sunday 14th June, 2026, with music by Wood, Wesley, Stainer and Parry.
The choir has produced a number of acclaimed CD recordings. The most recent, ‘Resurrexi!’, was released on 1 April 2022, and is a celebration of Easter in 18th-century Vienna recorded with Oxford-based orchestra, the Instruments of Time & Truth and featuring works by Mozart and the Haydn Brothers: ‘…so sweetly done that you’re immediately tempted to hit the repeat button’ (The Arts Desk). ‘Ave Rex Angelorum’, a sequence of music tracing the journey from Christ the King to Epiphany, was released in 2020: ‘Consistently polished singing, sensitive organ playing and energised direction, there can be no better Christmas CD out this year. In short, buy it!’ (Opera Today). A collaboration with the Academy of Ancient Music on the first recording of Francisco Valls’ forgotten Missa Regalis, not performed for over 200 years, was described on BBC Record Review as ‘a really confident performance, and a splendid recording’. ‘Ceremonial Oxford: Music for the Georgian University by William Hayes’ was also recorded with Instruments of Time & Truth: ‘Sung exquisitely… the excellent choir sings with nuanced harmonic shading and flawless tuning’ (Gramophone)
The choir’s next recording ‘Aurora’ features works by Matthew Martin, Deborah Pritchard, David McGregor, Robert Quinney, Elizabeth Maconchy, Philip Wilby, and various others, and is set to be released in early 2027.
