Sunday 20th October
10:00 AM
45. Cushion Concerts for Under 5s and Over 5s: Ted Black, Rachel Fright, Catriona Scott
20 Oct 2019 10:00 | Jacqueline du Pré Music Building
Presented in association with the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building A fun exploration of music and words, the human voice and the piano, singing and playing, for all the family. This is part of the well-established Cushion Concerts series at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building. The monthly Cushion Concerts introduce a wide variety of music and instruments to children ...
10:00 AM
46. Roderick Williams in Conversation
Sold Out - Waiting List Only
20 Oct 2019 10:00 | Ashmolean Museum
Philip Bullock interviews Roderick Williams on his life, career and favourite music over coffee and pastries, in the beautiful rooftop restaurant of the Ashmolean Museum.
11:00 AM
11am Cushion Concert for Under 5s: Ted Black, Rachel Fright
20 Oct 2019 11:00 | Jacqueline du Pré Music Building
Presented in association with the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building A fun exploration of music and words, the human voice and the piano, singing and playing, for all the family. This is part of the well-established Cushion Concerts series at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building. The monthly Cushion Concerts introduce a wide variety of music and instruments to children ...
11:00 AM
47. Last Supper in Pompeii
Last Few Tickets!
20 Oct 2019 11:00 | Ashmolean Museum: Lecture Theatre
Paul Roberts is the Sackler Keeper of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum and is the curator of their exhibition, Last Supper in Pompeii. He gives a special talk on the exhibition in the Lecture Theatre from 11am, followed by a visit to the exhibition itself from midday. Presented in assocation with the Ashmolean Museum
12:00 PM
12pm Cushion Concert for Over 5s: Ted Black, Rachel Fright
20 Oct 2019 12:00 | Jacqueline du Pré Music Building
Presented in association with the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building A fun exploration of music and words, the human voice and the piano, singing and playing, for all the family. This is part of the well-established Cushion Concerts series at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building. The monthly Cushion Concerts introduce a wide variety of music and instruments to children ...
2:30 PM
48. Housman's Myth-Making
Sold Out - Waiting List Only
20 Oct 2019 14:30 | St John's College Auditorium
Please note this event is FREE for ticketholders of 'On Wenlock Edge' at 3pm. As part of his attempt to separate his poetry and his profession as a classicist, A. E. Housman downplayed classical references in his verse. Jennifer Ingleheart, Professor of Latin at the University of Durham, explores the significance of some of his classical myths and allusi...
3:00 PM
49a. On Wenlock Edge: Daniel Norman, Sholto Kynoch & Brodsky Quartet
Sold Out - Waiting List Only
Chamber Music Early Evening Film Screening
20 Oct 2019 15:00 | St John's College Auditorium
This event is now sold out, but tickets are available for the later performance of On Wenlock Edge at 5.30pm (Event 49b). In 2014, Oxford Lieder commissioned an animated film of Schubert’s Erlkönig from puppeteer Jeremy Hamway-Bidgood that has been viewed nearly 5 million times! Jeremy has now created a new animated film for Ralph Vaughan Williams’s setti...
3:00 PM
Oxford Lieder in Wallingford: Sounding Out Song
20 Oct 2019 15:00 | St Peter's Church, Wallingford
Katy Hamilton is one of the most sought-after speakers on music in the UK, and today she gives an introduction to music and poetry intended to dispel any concerns people might have that song is 'not for them'. With a bit of background, some cultural context and tips on how best to approach songs in foreign languages, this talk sets out to demystify 'art song' and promises to be ...
4:00 PM
Oxford Lieder in Wallingford: Der Doppelgänger - Maria Forsström & Matti Hirvonen
20 Oct 2019 16:00 | St Peter's Church, Wallingford
The great Swedish duo of Maria Forsström and Matti Hirvonen present a programme of ghosts and graves. Presented in association with Music at St Peter's Wallingford. Supported using public funding by Arts Council England [youtube url=https://youtu.be/8zlBMvyfBL4]
4:15 PM
50. Music of Ancient Greece
Sold Out - Waiting List Only
20 Oct 2019 16:15 | St John's College Auditorium
Please note this event is FREE for ticketholders of 'On Wenlock Edge' at 3pm. Armand D’Angour, Professor of Classics at Jesus College and former professional cellist, discusses the music of ancient Greece: what do we know, how did it sound, and how did words and music interact? Watch 'Rediscovering Ancient Greek Music', introduced by A...
5:30 PM
EXTRA PERFORMANCE - 49b. On Wenlock Edge: Daniel Norman, Sholto Kynoch & Brodsky Quartet
Chamber Music Early Evening Film Screening
20 Oct 2019 17:30 | St John's College Auditorium
In 2014, Oxford Lieder commissioned an animated film of Schubert’s Erlkönig from puppeteer Jeremy Hamway-Bidgood that has been viewed nearly 5 million times! Jeremy has now created a new animated film for Ralph Vaughan Williams’s settings of Housman, On Wenlock Edge, designed for live performance. In the newly refurbished auditorium at St John’s Colleg...
7:00 PM
51. A Night at The Museum: Benjamin Appl, Graham Johnson, Rowan Pierce, Nathaniel Mander & Prof. Michael Scott
Some seating areas sold out
20 Oct 2019 19:00 | Ashmolean Museum
Presented in association with Classics for All One of the highlights of this year’s Festival is an evening in multiple parts at the Ashmolean Museum. In the Randolph Sculpture Gallery, Benjamin Appl and Graham Johnson explore songs of classical mythology, surrounded by Greco-Roman statues. Upstairs, in the rooftop restaurant, Michael Scott – well-known Classicist and pr...Monday 21st October
11:15 AM
52. An Arctic Exploration: Ross Griffey
21 Oct 2019 11:15 | The Weston Library: Lecture Theatre
Presented in association with the Bodleian Libraries Ahead of the premiere of his new work this evening, composer Ross Griffey talks about his experiences as an Albi Rosenthal Visiting Fellow at the Bodleian Libraries and the inspirations behind his songs of winter journeying and Arctic exploration, in particular the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera. &...
1:05 PM
53. Invitation Au Voyage: Marie-Laure Garnier & Célia Oneto Bensaid
21 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
Presented in association with the Académie Orsay-Royaumont and the Institut Français Royaume Uni Marie-Laure Garnier returns to the Festival following a sensational performance of Debussy songs in 2018, this time with pianist Célia Oneto Bensaid. Their concert is under the banner of the Académie Orsay-Royaumont, a year-long course for exceptional young d...
3:00 PM
54. In Search of An Ending: Laura Tunbridge
21 Oct 2019 15:00 | The Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College
With two masterpieces ahead of us this evening, Laura Tunbridge explores the links, sometimes ignored and sometimes overstated, between Schubert and Beethoven in their final years.
5:30 PM
55. Beethoven Op. 130: Albion Quartet
21 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
The electrifying Albion Quartet - who gave a stunning performance of the Dvořák Piano Quintet with Christopher Glynn at the 2018 Festival - play Beethoven’s late masterpiece, the String Quartet in B flat major Op.130. They perform it with Beethoven’s original finale, the famous ‘Grosse Fuge’, that is still as arresting today as it was when it was first h...
8:00 PM
56. Winter Journey: Roderick Williams, Nicholas Mogg, Christopher Glynn
Some seating areas sold out
21 Oct 2019 20:00 | Saint John the Evangelist
Roderick Williams continues his survey of the Schubert cycles, in English translations by Jeremy Sams, with pianist Christopher Glynn. Tonight’s ‘Winter Journey’ is preceded by a new cycle, World of Ice, commissioned from Ross Griffey, whom Festival audiences met last year during his events as an Albi Rosenthal Visiting Fellow at the Bodleian Libraries. He sets texts base...Tuesday 22nd October
10:00 AM
57. Masterclass with Roderick Williams
Sold Out - Waiting List Only
22 Oct 2019 10:00 | The Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College
Roderick Williams works with duos from the Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform, students from Oxford University Faculty of Music and the Royal Academy of Music. All are welcome.
1:05 PM
58. Shéhérazade: Caitlin Hulcup & Gary Matthewman
22 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
We are delighted to welcome back the renowned mezzo-soprano Caitlin Hulcup and leading pianist Gary Matthewman. At the heart of their programme is Ravel’s vibrant and evocative Shéhérazade, conjuring the exotic world of the Thousand and One Nights, the Persian king Shahryar and his young bride Scheherazade. Other songs of queens, knights and mystical lands feature, by Schuma...
3:00 PM
59. Knights in Shining Armour
22 Oct 2019 15:00 | The Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College
Daniel Godfrey, curator and collaborator on a number of exhibitions in the British Museum, including German Romantic prints and drawings from an English private collection (2011), discusses the imagery of ruins, knights and medieval myth in German Romantic art.
5:30 PM
60. The Shepherd on the Rock: Elin Manahan Thomas, Joseph Shiner & Jocelyn Freeman
22 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
One of Schubert’s last works, Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (‘The Shepherd on the Rock’) was commissioned in 1828 as a showpiece for the soprano Anna Milder and has remained a popular staple of the repertoire ever since. Renowned soprano Elin Manahan Thomas performs this, in a programme that also includes works by Rossini, other songs by Schubert, and Schumann’s Fantasiest&uum...
7:30 PM
61. Forest Twilight: Sophie Karthäuser, Stephan Loges & Eugene Asti
22 Oct 2019 19:30 | Holywell Music Room
A star trio performs songs by Schubert, Brahms and Mendelssohn, with poems of knights in ruined castles and twilit encounters in mysterious forests. They include Schumann’s Liederkreis Op.39, setting the poetry of Eichendorff, as a perfect complement to these songs. Sophie Karthäuser, Stephan Loges and Eugene Asti are firm favourites at the Oxford Lieder Festival, and we are del...Wednesday 23rd October
11:45 AM
62. Moral Contradictions: Helen Abbott
23 Oct 2019 11:45 | Holywell Music Room
Moral Contradictions: Fables and Tales from Baudelaire and La Fontaine. Helen Abbott introduces settings of Baudelaire in song – following the recent culmination of the Baudelaire Song Project – and the Aesop-influenced poems of Jean de la Fontaine, ahead of today's lunchtime concert.
1:05 PM
63. French Fables: Jess Dandy & Sholto Kynoch
23 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
Presented in association with the University of Birmingham Contralto Jess Dandy, an Oxford Lieder Young Artist, is fast emerging as one of the most exciting young singers today. Her programme features settings of Baudelaire, including the world premiere of a new song by our Associate Composer, Cheryl Frances-Hoad. She and Sholto Kynoch also perform settings of the seventeenth-centu...
3:00 PM
64. Fables and Tales: Claire Ward, Guy Murgatroyd, Katherine Astbury & Katherine Hambridge
23 Oct 2019 15:00 | The Shulman Auditorium, The Queen's College
PLEASE NOTE A CHANGE OF VENUE (from Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College to Shulman Auditorium, The Queen's College.) This afternoon's event looks at the fable in France and Germany from the late 17th century through to the Napoleonic era with a focus on La Fontaine, Lessing and Florian - and a nod or two to Aesop of course. This fasc...
5:30 PM
65. Schubert Quartet in G: Piatti Quartet
23 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
The prize-winning Piatti Quartet, described in the Evening Standard as ‘a young ensemble at its finest’, returns to the Festival to play Schubert’s last string quartet, the expansive and profound Quartet in G D887, written in 1826. Watch the Piatti Quartet perform the second movement of Haydn's 'Emperor' Quartet: [youtube url=https://youtu.be/VTydqw...
8:00 PM
66. Swansong: Roderick Williams & Christopher Glynn
Some seating areas sold out
23 Oct 2019 20:00 | Saint John the Evangelist
Schubert’s unparalleled final songs, put together by the publisher Tobias Haslinger after the composer’s death as his ‘Swan Song’, are some of the crowning glories of the song repertoire. With these settings of Ludwig Rellstab, Heinrich Heine and Johann Seidl, Roderick Williams brings his Festival residency to an exquisite close, with pianist Christopher Glynn.
9:30 PM
67. Schubert and the Comedian Harmonists: Schubert & Co.
23 Oct 2019 21:30 | The Mad Hatter
In the convivial setting of the Mad Hatter bar on Iffley Road, the male voices of ensemble Schubert & Co. round off our Schubert focus on a high. Sociable drinking songs by Schubert fill the Mad Hatter cocktail bar, alongside uplifting music by the world-famous close harmony group of the ‘20s and ‘30s, The Comedian Harmonists. Tickets include one drink and the bar will b...Thursday 24th October
10:00 AM
68. Masterclass with Simon Lepper
24 Oct 2019 10:00 | Holywell Music Room
Simon Lepper works with students including Oxford Lieder Young Artists. Simon Lepper performs twice on Friday 18 October (with James Newby and Kitty Whately) and with Gweneth Ann Rand at tomorrow's Late Night Concert at SJE. We are delighted that today he will give a masterclass for young pianists and singers, including a duo from the Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform. Full ...
1:05 PM
69. The Rose and the Willow: Mercedes Gancedo & Beatriz Miralles
24 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
Prize-winning Argentinian soprano Mercedes Gancedo and exciting young pianist Beatriz Miralles have been the Young Artists in Residence at the LIFE Victoria Festival in Barcelona. They present songs by the Spanish composer Xavier Montsalvatge and the Argentinian Alberto Ginastera. At the heart of the programme, the masterful songs of Ginastera’s compatriot Carlos Guastavino, including the...
3:00 PM
70. Les Chansons de Bilitis: Helen Abbott, Gabriella Dall'Olio & Musicians from Faculty of Music
24 Oct 2019 15:00 | The Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College
The erotic poems of Pierre Louÿs’s Les Chansons de Bilitis, which the author falsely claimed were translated from Ancient Greek, inspired several works by Claude Debussy. This is a rare chance to hear his Musique de scene pour les chansons de Bilitis, for two flutes, two harps and celeste, introduced and narrated by Helen Abbott. Musicians from Oxford University's Faculty of M...
5:30 PM
71. The Rite of Spring: Owen-Apekisheva Duo
24 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
The Owen-Apekisheva Duo gave a stunning performance at last year’s Festival and we are thrilled that they will return for two concerts this year. In the first of these, they perform Debussy’s Épigraphes Antiques, based on the music he had written to accompany Pierre Louÿs’s poems Les Chansons de Bilitis (see 3pm event and 8pm concert). Alongside this, we hear Strav...
8:00 PM
72. Four Last Songs: Carolyn Sampson & Joseph Middleton
Some seating areas sold out
24 Oct 2019 20:00 | Saint John the Evangelist
Carolyn Sampson (described by The Times as having a ‘purity of tone matched by her dramatic ability to inhabit the spirit of each song in the cycle as though it were a perfectly contained world’) and regular duo partner Joseph Middleton ('the cream of the new generation') perform songs by Haydn (Arianna a Naxos), the young Schoenberg, and Gustav Mahler. After the interval, w...Friday 25th October
1:05 PM
73. Solitude: Ilker Arcayürek & Hartmut Höll
25 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
Austrian tenor Ilker Arcayürek has been described by The Guardian as ‘in a class of his own’, and Opera Now wrote of him, in their list of Top Ten Rising Stars, as a ‘golden and natural lyric tenor’. We are delighted that he will give his Festival debut with the world-renowned pianist Hartmut Höll. Their all-Schubert programme includes the Beethoven-inspired &l...
3:00 PM
74. Messiaen & Wagner
25 Oct 2019 15:00 | The Weston Library: Lecture Theatre
Ahead of an extraordinary trio of concerts this evening, Philip Bullock introduces the music of Messiaen and Wagner and the links between them, in particular exploring Messiaen’s ‘Tristan Trilogy’.
5:30 PM
75. Visions de L'Amen: Owen-Apekisheva Duo
25 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
In the second of their concerts this year, the Owen-Apekisheva Duo perform Messiaen’s epic masterpiece for two pianos, Visions de l’Amen. It was written in 1943 and performed in the same year by the composer and his student and future wife, Yvonne Loriod.
7:45 PM
76. Dreams - Wesendonck Lieder: Dorothea Röschmann & Malcolm Martineau
25 Oct 2019 19:45 | Saint John the Evangelist
Two of today’s great artists, known for their performances together on disc and in leading halls and festivals the world over, perform songs by Schubert and Schumann, together with Mahler’s glorious Rückert Lieder. They conclude tonight’s programme with Wagner’s astonishing Wesendonck Lieder, the last of which, ‘Traüme’ (‘Dreams’) s...
10:00 PM
77. Harawi - Song of Love and Death: Gweneth Ann Rand & Simon Lepper
25 Oct 2019 22:00 | Saint John the Evangelist
Setting his own texts, in the spirit of Wagner and Debussy, Messiaen’s epic song cycle Harawi was inspired by Peruvian folklore and the indigenous Quechuan language. The first of his ‘Tristan Trilogy’ (with echoes of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde), the work explores love that can only be truly fulfilled in death. Gweneth Ann Rand is an acclaimed interpreter of Messiaen and...Saturday 26th October
11:00 AM
78. The Boy's Magic Horn - Anthony Phelan, Konstantin Krimmel, Doriana Tchakarova, Ben Haggarty & Sherry Robinson
26 Oct 2019 11:00 | Holywell Music Room
We explore the Grimm Brothers’ fairy-stories and wonder-tales, and the magical language of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the collection of folk poetry first published in Heidelberg. Anthony Phelan will trace the sources and resources that reinvent German language and identity in these Heidelberg years when the Romantic movement pioneered a style for later important song poets. The lunchtim...
4:30 PM
79. Duruflé Requiem: The Choir of Merton College, Olivia Warburton, Benson Wilson & Rebecca McNaught
Some seating areas sold out
26 Oct 2019 16:30 | Merton College Chapel
The Choir of Merton College, one of Oxford’s leading chapel choirs, performs Duruflé’s wonderful Requiem, alongside short works by Judith Weir and our Associate Composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad. This concert is a popular tradition of the final day of the Festival. We are delighted that the Choir and their Director Benjamin Nicholas will be joined by Olivia Warburton, who so impre...
7:30 PM
80. Dangerous Liaisons: Louise Alder, Nikolay Borchev & Sholto Kynoch
26 Oct 2019 19:30 | Saint John the Evangelist
Love, omnipresent in song, is a dangerous game, from the fatal allure of the Lorelei to foolish dares undertaken in its name. Louise Alder and Nikolay Borchev bring the Festival to a thrilling close, with songs by Schubert, Liszt, Schumann and others. Louise Alder gave a sensational concert at the 2018 Festival, not long after her triumph at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. Belarusian barit...Thursday 28th November
6:00 PM
Song at Wolfson / Felix Kemp: Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov
28 Nov 2019 18:00 | Wolfson College
Felix Kemp and Sholto Kynoch perform Brahms' Vier ernste Gesänge and songs by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.Sunday 1st December
11:00 AM
Oxford Lieder at Fairlight Hall: Felix Kemp sings Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov
01 Dec 2019 11:00 | Fairlight Hall
Felix Kemp and Sholto Kynoch perform Brahms' Vier ernste Gesänge and songs by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. To buy tickets, please visit the Fairlight Hall website.