Now in its 11th year, Oxford’s foremost festival of early music returns in February.
TUESDAY 25 February
6pm CHORAL EVENSONG
Sung by Keble Chapel Choir, including Nicolas Gombert’s monumental Magnificat Tertii Toni
Free admission
7.30pm FRETWORK – Gibbons 400
In the 400th anniversary year of Orlando Gibbons’s death, the world’s premier viol consort presents a programme in celebration of the great composer, to include the composer’s greatest chamber Fantasias and verse anthems performed by members of Keble Chapel Choir.
£35/£25/£10 students
Book now
WEDNESDAY 26 February
1pm SOUNDS OF THE CITY
From lively market square and raucous tavern, to serene chapel, Keble’s Graduate Choral Assistants present a musical jaunt through the early modern city in a programme of 16th and 17th century vocal music from across Europe.
Programme
Free admission (Retiring collection)
7.30pm STILE ANTICO – The Prince of Music – Palestrina in the Eternal City
Stile Antico marks its twentieth season by honouring the undisputed master of the style which gives the group its name: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whose quincentenary falls in 2025. Palestrina’s stellar career was inextricably entwined with the Papacy and the great churches of Rome for which he composed. This programme explores the music he would have sung at the Sistine Chapel, the changes in his style demanded by the Counter-Reformation, his tragic personal life, and his influence on his successors.
£35/£25/£10 students
Book now.
THURSDAY 27 February
1pm THE BATE COLLECTIVE
Directed by Dr Jonathan Williams
Oxford university students present a programme of French and German baroque music performed on historic instruments from the Bate Collection.
Programme
Free admission (Retiring collection)
7.30pm THE BASILINDA CONSORT – Arise my Love
Oxford’s newest early music consort presents a programme drawing on new research relating to music from convents established expressly for English Catholic women across France, the Low Countries, and Portugal, through the 17th and early 18th centuries.
Programme
£25/£20/£7 students
Book now
9pm COMPLINE BY CANDLELIGHT
Plainchant and polyphony sung by Keble Chapel Choir
Free admission
FRIDAY 28 February
1pm BACH AND SONS – Organ Recital
Emeritus Organist of New College Oxford, Edward Higginbottom celebrates the musical lineage of the Bach family in a programme of music by the great Johann Sebastian and two of his sons.
Programme
Free admission (Retiring collection)
5pm MONTEVERDI’S LABORATORY
Featuring hand-picked student singers from across the university, coached by soprano Miriam Allan and harpsichordist Christopher Bucknall, this programme explores the astonishing laboratory of Monteverdi’s mind and explores the evolution of vocal music from renaissance polyphony to the dramatic music which evolved into opera as we know it today.
£10/£5 students
Book now
7.30pm HELEN CHARLSTON & FRIENDS – I Love and I Must
‘Sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants…’
Fly alongside Purcell, Strozzi, Charpentier and Monteverdi in the pursuit of love. Recent Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine award winner, BBC New Generation Artist and winner of the London Handel Competition 2018, Helen Charlston’s rise in the realms of early music has been nothing short of meteoric. Here she is joined by harpsichordist Julian Perkins, bass viol Jonathan Manson and theorbist Sergei Bucheli in a programme of 16th and 17th century song.
Programme
£35/£25/£10 students
Book now
SATURDAY 1 March
12:00 THE RISE OF CREMONA – Virgil and the Violin
Benjamin Hebbert, one of the world’s leading violin experts, explores the rise of Cremona as the centre for instrument-making through the work of Andrea Amati during the latter half of the 16th century. The lecture will focus on Amati’s earliest violin (1564) now held at the Ashmolean as well as a presentation – with live performance by Peter Sheppard Skaerved – of the earliest Amati violin in private ownership (1572), both made for Catherine de Medici’s musicians.
£10/£5 students
Book now
7.30pm PURCELL’S ‘THE FAIRY QUEEN’
In the climax of this year’s festival, Keble Chapel Choir are joined by the Instruments of Time and Truth and a stellar cast of young soloists in Purcell’s feted take on Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, in a semi-staged production by Nicholas Heath, directed by Christian Wilson.
£40/£30/£10 students
Book now
KEMF Workshops
FRIDAY 21 February
2-5pm BAROQUE STRING WORKSHOP
An open baroque performance workshop for secondary-school aged students grades 6+ led by Oxford-based period instrument ensemble Instruments of Time &Truth in partnership with the Oxfordshire County Music Service. Baroque bows will be provided.
www.timeandtruth.co.uk/kemfworkshop2024
Free admission
SATURDAY 22 February
10.30am – 5.30pm THAMES VALLEY EARLY MUSIC FORUM
Benjamin Nicholas directs a day-long workshop for voices and instruments (A=415) featuring choruses from two of Henry Purcell’s best known works, ‘Come, ye sons of art’ and ‘Hail! Bright Cecilia’, in association with Thames Valley Early Music Forum.
Details and booking at www.tvemf.org/future-events
£16 TVEMF members / £20 non-members