Excitement mounts for the upcoming programme for Castalian String Quartet’s concert on Thursday 30 January at the Holywell Music Room. Featuring four captivating pieces, each with its own unique character and story, the evening will be a journey through pieces both familiar and new. For those wanting to go deeper, we’ve prepared a sneak peek into the programme notes, offering insights into the stories and history behind the music you’ll experience:
Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809)String Quartet in G minor, Op. 20 No. 3
In 1772, over a decade into his thirty-year tenure at the Esterházy Court, Haydn composed the six works of his opus 20. They represent a departure from the playful divertimenti style of his previous compositions in the genre. Despite the set’s rather cheery nickname – the ‘Sun’, due to the image which decorated an early edition of the work – here Haydn deals in a more serious strain, characteristic of the then flourishing Sturm und Drang movement.
The concept of ‘storm and stress’ may have resonated with the composer, whose extensive musical responsibilities under Prince Nikolaus Esterházy left him, in his own words, ‘completely secluded from the world’. But this isolation was not without its merits, as the composer recognised when he added, ‘in this way I became original’. Critics agree. As Donald Tovey wrote, ‘every page of the six quartets of Op. 20 is of historic and aesthetic importance’.
The Quartet in G minor encapsulates Haydn’s individual spirit. The first of two minor-key quartets in the set, it introduces his choice to emphasise the minor mode, uncommon in string quartets of the time. In the spirited Allegro, the minor primary theme unfolds over a set of seven-bar phrases, another unusual compositional choice which produces a disconcerting unevenness. The secondary theme then emerges in the relative major, contrasting with the minor opening. This movement’s tension between minor and major modes, combined with its odd phrase lengths, contributes to the enigmatic reputation of the quartet.
In the second movement, a melancholic allegretto Minuetto, irregular five-bar phrases in the minor continue to create a sense of undanceable unease. The E-flat major trio initially offers some comforting emotional uplift, but its ending, marked perdendosi (‘dying away’), returns to uncertainty.
The slow third movement, Poco adagio, expounds the key of G major through stately exchanges between first violin and cello, a dialogue which comes to define the movement. The first violin’s melodic motifs dominate the Allegro di molto finale, where abrupt contrasts between sound and silence effect a frenetic energy before the movement quietly fades out in an echo of the Minuet’s trio, setting like the sun.
György Kurtág (1926 –)Six Moments Musicaux, Op. 44
‘Playing is just playing. It requires a great deal of freedom and initiative from the performer … We should make use of free declamation, folk-music, parlando-rubato, of Gregorian chant, and of all that improvisational musical practice has ever brought forth.’
György Kurtág provides this insight into his compelling, fragmentary aesthetic. The Hungarian composer’s delightfully capricious piece consists of six short sections, each with its own programmatic impulse. Recalling Schubert’s composition of the same name, Kurtág’s Six Moments Musicaux incorporates an eclectic yet complementary array of inspirations. A passionate opening gives way to eerie, echoic footfalls suggested by a poem of the fin-de-siècle Hungarian writer Endre Ady. What Kurtág describes as the ‘cunning pitfalls’ of the third moment turn contemplative in the fourth, in homage to the pianist György Sebők. Birdsong mingles with the Dies irae before a pastiche of Janáček sounds a speechlike farewell.
Composed between 1999 and 2005, when Kurtág was in his mid-seventies, Six Moments Musicaux reflects the diverse symbolic language of his musical life – from his youth spent under turbulent transitions between the Nazi occupation, Communist regime, and the Hungarian Uprising, to his encounters with the musical avant-garde in Paris. This work is dedicated to his son and fellow composer, György Kurtág Jr.
Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179)Three Antiphons for string quartet (arr. Marianne Pfau)
Hildegard von Bingen was a twelfth-century polymath: an abbess, visionary, writer, and composer famed for numerous antiphons – short pieces of religious text set to music – reflecting her mystic musical philosophy: ‘the body is the vestment of the spirit, which has a living voice, and so it is proper for the body, in harmony with the soul, to use its voice to sing praises to God’.
In these arrangements, the opening antiphon, O virtus sapientie, sees the first violin sings out Hildegard’s plainchant melody over drone-like meditations from the other strings. Hildegard envisions the titular ‘Divine Wisdom’ as a three-winged being, symbolic of the Trinity. The second violin, reserved from the first antiphon’s trio of voices, leads into the responsory for the holy innocent, Rex Noster. A flowing melody lingers on the figure of ‘Our King’ in heaven, who receives the blood of the infants massacred by Herod. The angels are moved to praise, but the clouds weep. The held tones of the quartet recall the resonant acoustics of a vaulted cathedral: a voice echoing out under the mournful heavens. The final antiphon O dulcissime amator, Hildegard’s symphony of virgins, communicates youth and spiritual purity through ornate musical virtuosity. The viola here leads the quartet into a moment of unison – conveying a collective lamentation of sin.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)String Quartet No. 9 in C major, Op. 59 No. 3
In 1805, Russian ambassador in Vienna and prolific patron of the arts Count Andreas Razumovsky, commissioned a set of three string quartets from Beethoven. Written the following year, in the composer’s ‘heroic’ middle period, the work was published in 1808 as the eponymous Razumovsky quartets That same year, Razumovsky sponsored the formation of a chamber ensemble led by virtuoso first violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh. Where other quartets of the day tended to operate on few rehearsals, Razumovsky’s support allowed the Schuppanzigh Quartet sufficient time to practice more difficult repertoire like this. Still, Schuppanzigh complained about the complexity of the work. The notoriously curmudgeonly Beethoven is said to have demanded, ‘does he really believe that I think about his silly fiddle when the muse strikes me to compose?’.
The whims of the muse may have vexed Razumovsky, too. Although the ambassador had asked that Beethoven include a ‘Thème Russe’ in each of the three quartets, an explicit Russian theme is absent in the final C major quartet. The work begins with a slow Andante con moto section before introducing a distinctly spirited Allegro vivace main theme. The sense of disjuncture endures in the second movement, a yearning A minor Andante con moto quasi allegretto which makes use of a reversed recapitulation: Beethoven switches the expected order of the expositional themes, a manoeuvre associated with tragedy and frustration. His use of the Hungarian (double harmonic minor) scale furthers the bleak atmosphere before the third movement Menuetto delivers us out of desolation into the tonic key. We remain in C major for the closing Allegro molto, where fugal episodes interweave with an inversion of the minuet’s main motif. Having worked through the uncertainties of the earlier movements, Beethoven concludes the Razumovsky set with a triumphant Mannheim crescendo, with the entire ensemble rushing to a triple forte.
Although the work’s reception was mixed in its own time, this quartet stood out from the rest. In the words of a contemporary reviewer, ‘they are deep in conception and marvellously worked out, but not universally comprehensible, except the third, which by virtue of its individuality, melody, and harmonic power must win over every educated friend of music’.
Credit: Chloe Green
Book your tickets for the Castalian String Quartet’s upcoming concert and pre-concert talk on Thursday 30 January
There will also be a two celebration concerts on Friday 9 May with a special offer if you book both concerts taking place on this date.
Presented by the Cultural Programme in association with the Faculty of Music, University of Oxford, where the Castalian String Quartet are The Hans Keller String Quartet in Residence. Made possible thanks to The Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust.
As the curtain rises on a forgotten gem of the 18th century later this month, Professor David Francis Taylor of St Hugh’s College, Oxford, is breathing new life into plays that once dazzled audiences but have since faded into obscurity. Among them is Susanna Centlivre’s The Busy Body—a sharp-witted comedy of intrigue and disguise that captivated London audiences in 1709 and remained a favourite for over a century. In the article below, Taylor takes us behind the scenes of this exciting revival and shares his passion for bringing these remarkable works back to the spotlight.
A father locks his daughter in her room. She must marry the man of his choosing and, in the meantime, be kept well away from the opposite sex. Her friend is in a still worse position. Her legal guardian is determined to wed her himself, first and foremost to get his hands on her fortune. But these two women are clever. They’re not to be told what to do or who to love. Plans are hatched…
This is the situation in Susanna Centlivre’s The Busy Body, a comedy first staged in 1709 that would go on to become one of the London stage’s most popular plays across the next century. It’s a comedy of intrigue, disguise, and – in its title character – one of the greatest comic roles in the history of British theatre. The insatiably curious Marplot (the ‘busy body’) just can’t help himself. Again and again, he sticks his nose in where it’s not welcome – and, in the process, he causes the best laid plans of his friends to unravel. As his name suggests, he mars their plots.
Centlivre is a master of comic stagecraft, perhaps because she began her career as an actress. She knew through experience how theatre works; she knew how to entertain and move an audience. She was a prolific and successful playwright in her day but her writing – comprising some nineteen plays – has largely and unjustly been forgotten. But then, to judge by the programmes of our commercial repertory theatres, and with the exception of a handful of plays, British theatre between Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde barely exists at all.
In fact, there are many great plays of the Restoration and eighteenth century – and a large number of them were written by and for women. It was only in 1660, with the return of the monarchy and the reopening of the public theatres (closed during the Civil Wars and the Interregnum), that women were allowed to appear on the professional stage. And the arrival of the actress profoundly changed the way plays were written: now, for the first time, writers were creating characters specifically to be embodied by women. Nor was it long before women were writing plays themselves. Centlivre belongs to the second wave of pioneering women playwrights of this period.
I’m part of a group of scholars – based in the USA, Canada, and the UK – who are trying to get the many brilliant plays of Restoration and eighteenth century back on our stages. In 2019, we founded the R/18 Collective with the express purpose of finding ways to work with professional theatre practitioners to recover, explore, and stage this period of British theatre. It’s been hugely exciting to be part of this project.
In particular, since 2022 I’ve been collaborating with Creation Theatre in Oxford to mount plays by women. To date, we’ve staged five such plays through script-in-hand performances, and have performed a further one in an experimental digital production. Plays live through performance. They’re meant to be performed. So as someone who teaches and researches this period of theatre, I’ve learned an incalculable amount from being in the rehearsal room with actors and directors, thinking with them – thinking always done on our feet – about the language, characters, and ideas of these plays. And thinking, above all, about how we can make them speak to audiences today.
Thanks to the Cultural Programme, The Busy Body is our most ambitious such staging yet. Now collaborating with the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond (who have a venerable history of mounting this period’s plays) as well as Creation, we will spend a week workshopping Centlivre’s comedy with director Gabriella Bird and a cast of nine professional actors. In the past, the cast has met only on the morning on which the script-in-hand performance is to take place, so it’s wonderful to have more time to grapple and experiment with The Busy Body. We’ll be staging it twice: once in Oxford (at St. Hugh’s College) on Friday 24 January and then again at the Orange Tree on Sunday 26.
The Busy Body is a dazzlingly funny play but it’s also a work of theatre that has much to say to us in 2025, not least about gender identity, freedom of choice, and generational conflict. I can’t wait to delve into it with our director and cast – and I can’t wait to share it with audiences.
Whether it’s the lively chaos of The Busy Body or the broader legacy of pioneering 18th-century playwrights like Centlivre, this project reminds us that theatre, like history, comes alive most vividly when brought to the stage. Don’t miss the chance to experience The Busy Body taking place on Friday 24 January in Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and also at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, on Sunday 26 January.
As the sun rises and a new day begins, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective brings three inspiring events on Friday 28 February, inspired by the power of music on wellbeing. Events include a grounding yoga session with violinist and yogi Elena, a panel discussion with members of the collective and Professor Eric Clarke on looking after your wellbeing, an important part of general good health, and ending with a concert like no other in the Sheldonian Theatre. Read on for all the details of this inspiring celebration from Kaleidoscope Founder, Tom Poster:
Kaleidoscope’s Music and Wellbeing day starts at sunrise (or thereabouts!) with a grounding, juicy yoga class, accessible for all ages and stages, to start the day mindfully. This session will be led by Kaleidoscope’s own Elena Urioste, who is not only a violinist but also a qualified yoga instructor.
A pre-concert discussion and Q&A with members of Kaleidoscope and Professor Eric Clarke offers insights into what really goes through the minds, hearts and bodies of performing musicians (with parallels, undoubtedly, to many other walks of life!). The discussion will also explore practical ways to look after physical and mental health in challenging times.
As the day culminates, we invite our audience to an intimate musical listening experience, with performers and audience alike bonded through breath and mindfulness, in a communal listening space with chairs and relaxed inviting and comfortable bean bags. The evening programme opens with a solo musician and grows to an ensemble of five, featuring works that explore themes of dreams, hope and spirituality: Beethoven wrote his transcendent Heiliger Dankgesang after recovering from a serious illness which he had feared would be fatal, while the Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov’s klezmer-inspired clarinet quintet, The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, electrifyingly combines dance tunes and dreamlike introspection, conjuring an intense state of communion. There will be recent music from Jessie Montgomery, and folk traditions will weave through the programme, including brand new arrangements by myself (Tom Poster).
Staging a concert in a more relaxed and immersive setting is a new experience for us. By encouraging people to listen ‘differently’ (which is to say, comfortably and mindfully, not necessarily upright in a chair, and free to respond naturally to the music’s flow), we hope to bring listeners closer to both the visceral power and the solace of this music. After all, no two people are affected by music in the same way, so why should we expect everyone to listen in exactly the same manner? Our overriding wish is to provide magical collective experiences, so we hope to tempt you to join us on this exploration.
You can book your tickets for the Early Morning Yoga, Panel Discussion and Evening Concert, all taking place on Friday 28 February. Don’t miss out!
Date: Tuesday 21 January, 13.00-14.00, with lunch provided from 12.30 (Lunch and refreshments provided)
Location: Colin Matthew Room, Radcliffe Humanities (and online via MS Teams)
This is an invitation to attend a session to brainstorm ideas for a Cultural Programme Season on Medieval Afterlives. Prof. Marion Turner (English), Prof. Henrike Lähnemann (MML), Prof Nancy Thebaut (History of Art), and Prof. Elizabeth Eva Leach (Music) are already collaborating with the Cultural Programme on possible opportunities for the season and we are keen now to extend an invitation to others to join the conversation.
The aim of the session is to explore and test the potential for the season and bring together researchers who could be involved in shaping and delivering it.
The focus of the season will be on contemporary creativity, while also centring Oxford’s extraordinary medieval resources where appropriate – our manuscripts, instruments, objects, architecture, and spaces. This season might engage with novelists, poets, musicians, graphic artists, puppeteers, playwrights, actors, composers, designers, children’s book writers, textile workers, cartoonists, computer game programmers, AI technology, and more.
We would like the season to be ambitious and international while also engaging grass-roots, local communities, especially schools and young people. It will be wide-ranging, inclusive, accessible, innovative, and fun.
We also want to be open about the dark side of medieval appropriations in recent years, especially by the far right, and to examine and counter these narratives. While we want to bring in high-profile writers and artists, we also want to celebrate the creativity of everyone, including students. The season would be likely to take place circa 2028.
One overarching question might be whether this kind of contemporary creativity is an end in itself, or a gateway to the medieval past.
Please come along to this initial group meeting for all interested parties, which will be structured around the question:
What has medieval research to do with contemporary creativity?
If you have something you would like to share or discuss in advance, please feel free to reach out to the researchers who are already involved or the Cultural Programme via justine.shaw@humanities.ox.ac.uk.
Please RSVP to: culturalprogramme@humanities.ox.ac.uk with ‘Medieval Afterlives Workshop’ in the subject line.
We hope to see you on 21 January 2025
John Fulljames
Elena Urioste is a violinist and co-director of Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective with many strings to her multi-talented bow, including being a qualified yoga instructor. Elena will be hosting the Early Morning Yoga class as part of the Music and Wellbeing Day with Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective on 28 February 2025. We asked Elena about the connection between yoga and music.
How has yoga supported your wellbeing as a musician?
Over the course of my regular yoga practice, I have not only noticed changes in my outward appearance, but I have been able to adjust some physical habits that I had built up over the years from my violin playing. Additionally, as it is no small feat to survive 90 minutes of yoga in a scorching hot room without falling over or crying, the hot yoga sequence builds mental determination like you wouldn’t believe, as well as the ability to overcome almost any seemingly impossible situation.
My yoga and meditation practices are largely responsible for the sense of calm I am now able to access in even the most harrowing of performance circumstances. This is not to say that I am immune to pre-concert jitters, but I now know how to work with my nerves as opposed to battling against them.
How did you get into yoga?
I began practicing hot yoga in the summer of 2009, and from my very first class, I was hooked. Hot yoga is a fixed set of 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises that are performed in a heated room (105℉/40.5°C, 40% humidity) and each class lasts for 90 minutes. Insane? Possibly. Effective? Definitely.
I have since expanded my yoga repertoire to include other styles – among them Kripalu yoga and mindful, alignment-based vinyasa – as well as building a regular meditation practice. All of which has offered broader insight into a true mind-body-spirit connection.
Why do you recommend yoga for musicians and performers?
It is my personal belief that all musicians would benefit from a regular yoga practice. Posture awareness, breath control, a gradual development of mental strength and clarity, an increase in self-compassion… the benefits that yoga can introduce to one’s life are truly invaluable.
Many musicians, in their quest to fulfil the intellectual and emotional sides of their craft, overlook the more athletic components, which is perhaps less often discussed, but in many ways just as relevant to effective music-making. An athlete would never launch into his or her physical acrobatics without properly nurturing and preparing the body; similarly, musicians should consider what an immense physical undertaking it is to play an instrument. Proper blood circulation and limber muscles are vital, given the amount of time we spend making strenuous, repetitive motions.
Having had a myriad of physical issues with my violin playing for many years, I am immensely grateful for the better understanding of the human body that yoga has imparted to me, and I find it a fascinating ongoing study.
Techniques and wisdom that I have absorbed in the yoga room creep into my violin teaching as well, and I often find myself encouraging students to spend as much effort thinking about the way their breath flows from their lungs, through their bow arms and onto the strings as they do agonising over their intonation.
All musicians should learn to treat their bodies with the awareness and respect they deserve, and to find joy in their physical connections to their instruments — and ultimately, to the music itself.
Inspired to try yoga for your wellbeing? You can book tickets to Elena’s Early Morning Yoga session and take a look at the other events as part of the Kaleidoscope Music and Wellbeing Day.
On the theme of dreams and echoes in the Adventures in Consciousness season, six early career digital artists will be displaying their prototype digital immersive works at a public showcase at the Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub, Jesus College, a dynamic new space in the heart of Oxford, designed to bring together the brightest minds and the curious to discover, explore, use and benefit from the latest advances in digital technologies.
Taking place on 19 and 20 November, Immersive Assembly Volume 4: Dreams and Echoes is a public showcase of the fourth annual talent development programme from international arts commissioner, Mediale – a multi-disciplinary residency focusing on learning, peer critique and developing new ideas and collaborations in and around immersive art and technology.
Six UK-based artists have been developing projects which invite us, the audience, to explore the potential of immersive media in interrogating consciousness and enabling new interpretations of ‘reality’. There is an opportunity, as part of the process to explore neuroscience, mental health, access and medical science research expertise, as well as pioneering AI and ethics research, and globally leading immersive art. This has all been developed since May 2024.
Taking inspiration and understanding from world-leading academic research from Oxford University the artists involved artists have been considering the role that immersive experiences can play in the exploration of what consciousness means now, and what it could mean in the future.
Vladyslav Vyazovskiy Professor of Sleep Physiology, University of Oxford says, “I love to collaborate with artists. Artists and academics have a lot to share about what we study. We are both dealing with the unknown, just from different angles. There is data and then there is interpretation. The very same thing can mean different things to different people depending on how you look at it. So I see great opportunities for sharing learning by working and collaboration with artists”.
Professor Russell Foster, of Circadian Neuroscience and the Head of Department of Ophthalmology, at the University of Oxford says, “Fundamentally, what I’m excited about and trying to understand is how the core mechanisms of sleep and 24-hour circadian rhythms are generated and regulated within the central nervous system, and then to use this information to find ways to improve our quality of life. I believe strongly that working with artists can also help to achieve this vision. We are all, in our different ways, trying to find ways to understand the world we live in, if artists and scientists collaborate, we have a greater chance of achieving this vision.”
There will be supporting academics including Patricia Kingori, Senior Research Fellow; Professor in Global Health Ethics; Wellcome Senior Investigator; at Somerville College. Patricia is a sociologist whose primary expertise lies in exploring the everyday ethical experiences of frontline workers in global health. Also visiting will be Matthew Parrott, Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St Hilda’s College, Oxford and an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Matthew’s research focuses primarily on questions in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, and the philosophy of psychiatry, which extends to issues in epistemology and the philosophy of science.
If you would like find out about the prototypes in detail and book your free tickets please click the link here: Immersive Assembly Volume 4: Dreams and Echoes. Ticket sales will close 3 hours before the event. There may be a limited number of tickets available on the door on a first come, first served basis.
IA4 is supported by the Cultural Programme at Oxford University, the Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub at Jesus College Oxford, and Mediale’s talent development focus supported by Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation funding.
Oxford University’s Cultural Programme is proud to announce a diverse and exciting new classical music series featuring performances from Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, the Castalian String Quartet, and Instruments of Time and Truth.
The concerts, part of Oxford University’s Cultural Programme, will take place in venues around Oxford between Nov 24th and May 25th before the programme moves to the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities in 2026. The new centre will feature several state-of-the-art performance spaces, including a 500-seat concert hall.
Fresh from their Oxford International Song Festival performance, the Castalian String Quartet perform in the Holywell Music Room on Nov 26th, Jan 30th 2025 and May 9th 2025. Since forming in 2011, the Castalian String Quartet has emerged as one of the most exciting and in-demand quartets on the world stage. In 2019, the Royal Philharmonic Society named them Young Artist of the Year, and in 2022, they released their first studio recording, Between Two Worlds, to five-star reviews. The renowned quartet are resident at Oxford University, thanks to support from the Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust.
On Feb 28th, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective is curating a day dedicated to wellness and the transformative power of music. The day opens at 7.30 am in Blackwell Hall at the Weston Library, with a one-hour, open-level yoga flow for musicians. A pre-concert panel discussion in the Sheldonian Theatre at 6.00 pm explores the all-important topic of wellness and physical and mental health for musicians and performers. It is followed at 7.30 pm by a concert where audiences can sit close to the performers on relaxed floor cushions or chairs for an intimate musical experience. This unique setting, combined with new arrangements by Kaleidoscope’s founder, Tom Poster, promises a musical experience that connects audiences to the performers and the music.
On May 7, 2025, the Cultural Programme and the Bodleian Libraries present the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, under the direction of John Butt, and with the Choir of New College Oxford. This performance marks the 300th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach’s 1725 Ascension Day Cantata Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein, coinciding with the arrival of the autograph manuscript of the cantata at the Bodleian Libraries. This manuscript, one of only four of the composers in the UK, presents a rare and privileged opportunity for audiences to experience the manuscript come to life through music.
The series concludes on June 13, 2025, marking another anniversary, this time 300 years since the founding in 1725 of the Concert Spirituel, which became the primary promoter of concerts in Paris during the 18th century. Instruments of Time & Truth will perform instrumental and vocal music heard at the Concert Spirituel in the 1770s by François-Joseph Gossec, Jean-Baptiste Davaux, Jean-Joseph de Mondonville, and Amadeus Mozart. This concert goes on sale on Sunday 1 December.
To find out more about the Classical Music Series, including ticket prices and any available student discounts or group rates, and to purchase tickets for events, please click on the event and book tickets from the relevant page.
Set your alarms for our Conscious Sleep Symposium Day on Wednesday 20 November, where we take a journey into the history of sleep from the Victorian Age to the modern era with our panel of expert academics. Plus a hands-on session exploring the scents used to aid sleep and closing with a special live DJ set from Michael Diamond.
With an epidemic of sleeplessness sweeping the globe Professor Sally Shuttleworth places these concerns in historical perspective in Overwork and Sleeplessness in the Victorian Age. Dr Holly Fletcher introduces early modern understandings of sleep circa 1500 – 1750 in relation to both physical and mental health.
We turn to the 20th Century with Dr Kristin Hussey who explores the history of shift work and in particular working at night whilst Dr Tiffany Watt Smith looks at our attempts to study and rationalise the sleeping body. DJ and medic Michael Diamond and music psychologist Eric Clarke delve into the musical and psychological factors that underlie music’s capacity to shape our consciousness.
Dreams and sleep have inspired numerous authors and poets and Professor Ankhi Mukherjee asks us; what is it to write in, of, or like a dream? While Professor Matthew Bevis, inspired by the poet Alice Oswald, ponders the action of waking.
Get scent-ient with Dr Anna Fielding who hosts a hands-on practical session exploring scented ingredients that were used in the 16th and 17th centuries to aid sleep, purify bedchambers, and deter pests. Create your own historical linen powders and sweet-smelling bags to take home.
Be the first to try out new prototype digital immersive experiences for free, meet the artists and find out where these projects are going next with the Immersive Assembly Vol 4: Dreams & Echoes Showcase. Mediale has brought together six of the UK’s most exciting emerging digital artists with Oxford University academics to develop three brand new prototypes inspired by dreams and echoes.
Round the day off with Michael Diamond’s DJ set, waking us up with an energising dance party and then lulling us to a blissful sleep with dreamlike sounds. Tickets have just gone live and are free but booking is required.
If you would like to know a little more about the Conscious Sleep Symposium Day, watch this short video from Professor Sally Shuttleworth who gives a superb overview of what to expect. You can also find out more about the individual talks and events on the Conscious Sleep event page. We look forward to seeing you on the 20 November 2024.
A renowned string quartet whose performances have been described as ‘full of poetry, joy and sorrow’ will be continuing their residency at Oxford University thanks to renewed support from the Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust.
The Castalian String Quartet became the Faculty of Music’s inaugural Hans Keller String Quartet in Residence in 2021. The appointment has seen them deliver an annual concert series, undertake a range of diverse creative projects and feed into education and outreach initiatives aimed at inspiring the next generation of performers and composers. A new gift from the trust will now enable their residency to continue until 2027.
John Fulljames, Director of the University’s Cultural Programme, said: ‘We’re delighted that support from the Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust is enabling the Castalians’ Oxford residency to continue. Our partnership with the Castalians enriches the chamber music programme at Oxford, supporting research, teaching and student experience and enables audiences from across the city to enjoy the Castalians’ world-class performances.’
Deepening engagement with string quartet music in Oxford
Since forming in 2011 the Castalian String Quartet has emerged as one of the most exciting and in-demand quartets on the world stage. They were named Young Artist of the Year by the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2019 and released their first studio recording, Between Two Worlds, to five-star reviews in 2022. Several prominent composers have written works specifically for the Castalians which have then been performed in Oxford, including Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Awake and Charlotte Bray’s Ungrievable Lives.
Audiences will have the chance to hear the quartet perform live in Oxford as part of their extended residency. The concerts, which will form part of the Cultural Programme, will initially take place in venues around the city before moving to the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities in 2026. The new centre will feature several state-of-the-art performance spaces, including a 500-seat concert hall. Targeted activities and events will also enable new audiences from beyond the traditional concert setting to participate and hear the quartet perform.
As well as playing publicly, the quartet will continue to offer coaching and composition workshops for Oxford students and other young performers in the local area. They will also support academic research taking place within the Faculty of Music, including through pre-concert talks and seminars that cover topics relating to the work of the faculty’s academics.
Advancing art and music education
The Hans Keller String Quartet Residency was established in memory of the musician, writer and broadcaster Hans Keller (1919-1985), for whom the string quartet was the most purely musical form of composition. Keller made a significant contribution to the development of string quartet music in the second half of the twentieth century, having coached many of the leading British ensembles of the time, inspired composers to write in this form, and broadened and educated the audience for chamber music through his work at the BBC.
His wife, the artist Milein Cosman (1921-2017), established the Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust in 2006. Her aim was to advance art and music education, support musicians and artists, and preserve and promote her own work and that of her husband.
Hans Keller playing viola in string quartet. Drawing by Milein Cosman © The Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust
Current chair of the trust Alison Garnham said: ‘The Castalian String Quartet has exactly the kind of deeply individual, intimate and improvisatory quality to their playing that Keller most admired, and we are delighted to be helping bring their revelatory artistry to more young musicians.’
The Castalian String Quartet’s first concert of the 2024/25 season will take place on Saturday 19 October as part of the Oxford International Song Festival, with further events scheduled for 26 November, 30 January 2025 and 9 May 2025.
Featuring over 20 public events throughout October and November, Adventures in Consciousness is an inspiring season that explores consciousness and what it means to be human. Produced and curated by The Cultural Programme in partnership with Medical Humanities academics across the University of Oxford, events occur at various locations throughout Oxford from October 10 to December 1, 2024.
At the heart of the season is a series of five symposium days, each exploring one of five themes: Sleep, Perception, Health, Flourishing, and the Planet. Including talks, panel conversations, workshops, and creative activities, the free events will bring together University of Oxford academics, world-leading specialists and artists to explore concepts including planetary consciousness, human flourishing, the link between creativity and health, what happens when we sleep, and how we all perceive the world differently.
The season opens with Ruby Wax, who brings her one-woman show I’m Not as Well as I Thought I Was to Oxford Playhouse on Thursday, October 10. After a complete sell-out first run in 2023, this is Ruby Wax’s rawest, darkest, funniest, and most compelling stage show yet.
Following sell-out runs in New York, Sydney and Cannes, Oxford will host the UK premiere of Evolver, an immersive VR experience created by the award-winning Marshmallow Laser Feast, from Friday, October 25, to Thursday, November 14. Evolver’s unique journey unfolds with narration from Cate Blanchett alongside opening music from musician and producer Jon Hopkins. The score also features music by Oxford’s Jonny Greenwood.
A 90-minute cinematic presentation of Max Richter’s Sleep, which has become a modern musical phenomenon, will be followed by an exclusive conversation with Max. Audiences are invited to ‘come as you are’—whether in pyjamas or their favourite comfy clothes.
World renowned British photographer Tim Flach presents the compelling exhibition More Than Human, featuring a series of striking animal portraits exploring the profound link between animal and human consciousness.
To close the season on Friday, November 29, one of the nation’s favourite poets, Lemn Sissay OBE, will perform excerpts from his Sunday Times bestselling memoir My Name is Why which documents his experiences of growing up in the care system. This moving, frank, and timely performance meditates on a life spent asking questions and the redemptive power of creativity.
Other highlights include:
- A 21st Century Tea Dance. Hosted by the Olivier Award-winning Kit Green, renowned for their work in comedy and theatre and exploring themes of ageing and care, this event promises lively interactions and delightful social moments with tea, dancing and cake.
- After six sold-out shows worldwide and numerous festival appearances, the Museum of Consciousness returns to its home at Oxford University. Local and international artists and performers will combine to alter states of consciousness through the power of sound alone.
- Appearing alongside the dinosaurs and beautiful setting of Oxford’s Museum of Natural History, award winning spoken word collective Hot Poets will perform their show Poetry, Science and Saving the World. Their poetry, partnerships and storytelling power have supported diplomatic sign-off for a major re-greening project in Egypt, helped fund a new forest in Kenya and co-funded a UK regenerative farming project.
- Sagacity: Periodic Table of Emotions, Part of Oxfords’ Light Festival, invites audiences to interact with a colourful installation to measure the city’s mood.
Professor Erica Charters, Academic Lead, Medical Humanities Network, University of Oxford, says:
‘The Medical Humanities Research Hub at the University of Oxford are delighted to partner with the Cultural Programme on the Adventures in Consciousness Season, which draws on medical humanities to showcase an exhilarating range of events on the theme of consciousness, capturing the intellectual diversity required to tackle this topic, cutting across the sciences, technology, the humanities, and the creative arts.’
Josie Bamford, Executive Producer of the Cultural Programme, comments:
We’re so excited to present the Adventures in Consciousness season – a programme of incredible artists and creatives coming together with world leading thinkers to explore Consciousness through a range of lenses including sleep, health, flourishing, perception and the planet. The broad programme offers something for everyone from the World’s best immersive installations, to exhibitions, walks, talks, meditation and live performance. Come and join us and reflect on what it means to be part of a Conscious Planet.’
To find out more about the Adventures in Consciousness season and to purchase tickets for events, please visit: www.oxfordculturalprogramme.org.uk
Exhibition dates: 25 October – 14 November 2024
Press view: Thursday 24 October
The highly anticipated UK premiere of EVOLVER: An Immersive Journey Of Life And Breath, has been announced in collaboration with the Cultural Programme at Oxford University.
Following its world premiere at the 2022 Tribeca Festival and fresh from its French Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, London-based experiential artist collective Marshmallow Laser Feast brings EVOLVER, their extraordinary, collaborative virtual reality experience, to Oxford from Friday, 25th October to Thursday, 14th November.
A pop-up unit on Little Clarendon Street will be transformed into an immersive gallery space, with hourly slots available to experience EVOLVER from 12 noon to 8pm daily.
EVOLVER is an immersive journey through the breathing body, narrated by Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett. Commencing with a 10-minute binaural audio meditation to allow audiences to decompress whilst viewing large-scale projections, this site-specific presentation of EVOLVER invites twelve participants at a time to explore structures hidden far beneath the skin through an all-encompassing virtual reality trip around the human form. This deep dive takes viewers through a sequence of breathing, visualising the essence of life as air travels from the mouth into the lungs, whirling like a tornado, before circulating around the complex rivers and tributaries of our cardiovascular system and back into the natural world.
EVOLVER is part of the Adventures in Consciousness Season, a series of events led by the Cultural Programme at Oxford University that draws on medical humanities to showcase an exhilarating range of events on the theme of consciousness. This season captures the intellectual diversity required to tackle this topic, cutting across the sciences, technology, the humanities, and the creative arts. The full programme takes place from 10 October until 1 December and will be announced by the end of September.
Artist and director, Ersin Han Ersin of Marshmallow Laser Feast says: ‘In this and other works we have created, we are seeking to highlight our connection with the wider systems of nature through the experience of art. The oxygen trees exhale flows into our tree-like lungs, flowing from our heart centre outward through fractal branching arteries to feed every cell in our body. Placing the audience in the centre of these nested ecosystems, we aim to bring them closer to an understanding of our interconnectedness.’
Josie Bamford, Executive Producer at the Cultural Programme, says: ‘Following rave reviews from the Cannes Film Festival to exhibitions across Australia, South Korea and New York, Oxford audiences can now participate in this fascinating experience. As the headline event in our new ‘Adventures in Consciousness Season’, I am sure this will be an opportunity for everyone to learn more about themselves and the world around them. This is a key ambition for the Cultural Programme, and I cannot wait to experience it for myself!’
EVOLVER is created by the internationally renowned experiential artist collective, Marshmallow Laser Feast and co-executive produced by the late Edward. R. Pressman and Sam Pressman of Pressman Film, Terrence Malick, Dirty Films‘ Coco Francini, Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton, the famous French studio Atlas V and Orange.
The opening music is from musician and producer Jon Hopkins. The score also features music by Jonny Greenwood, Meredith Monk, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Yair Elazar Glotman, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe and Howard Skempton.
Ticket details:
Monday – Thursday: £15 per person
Friday – Sunday: £20 per person
Students, U25s and U18s: £10 per person
Age guidance: 11+, Under 18s must be accompanied by an adult
Tickets are available to book via: oxfordculturalprogramme.org.uk
Over 4,000 people joined in the fun at Blackbird Leys Park on a gorgeously hot summer day in July this year. The annual Leys Festival was back and bigger than ever with lots of activities for people to join in with and an array of fabulous local talent performing on stage.
This family event, created and planned by over 60 passionate residents and community organisers from Blackbird Leys and Greater Leys, isn’t just any festival – it’s one of Oxford’s most beloved free community events. Celebrating the incredible bonds and positive relationships fostered within Blackbird Leys and Greater Leys, this year’s theme, ‘Building Bridges,’ highlighted the unity and energy invested in connecting different generations and cultures within this vibrant community.
From mural painting to face painting, from tug of war games to football coaching, a fun time was had by all, and thanks should go to all the volunteers who helped to make the festival a success.
This was the first time the Leys Festival was supported by the University of Oxford, collaborating with the community to create and run their own festival and the intention is for this to be a productive and positive partnership.
