CD Recording: to be released in March 2026

In December, the Choir spent 9th week recording an exciting new album with Signum Classics. The album features work by Kenneth Leighton, Harold Darke, Rebecca Clarke, Imogen Holst, and Gustav Holst - several of which never recorded before. It is due to be released in March 2026.

Bach: St Matthew Passion BWV 244 with Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra

On Sunday 2nd March, the Choir were delighted to join Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra and The Boys of Radley College to perform Bach’s St Matthew Passion at the Sheldonian Theatre. Featuring a star-studded line-up of soloists, the work often hailed as Bach’s masterpiece was excellently received by the audience, evident in their warm applause.

Nicholas Mulroy Evangelist

Ashley Riches Christus

Julia Doyle soprano

Helen Charlston mezzo-soprano

Guy Cutting tenor

Michael Mofidian bass-baritone

Oxford International Song Festival 2025

The Choir’s upper voices were delighted to have been invited to perform in this year’s Oxford International Song Festival. Featuring soloists Angharad Rowlands and Katie Thompson, the choir performed Debussy’s extraordinary cantata La Dameoiselle élue in Birmigham’s Elgar Concert Hall and Wolfson College here in Oxford, continuing the Choir’s valued partnership with the festival.

BBC Radio Broadcasts 2025

On Saturday 15th February, the Choir recorded two services live, to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4 at later dates. Our Choral Evensong for BBC Radio 3 aired on Wednesday 19th February, featuring some of our favourite 20th century works by Edward Bairstow, Kenneth Leighton, Sydney Watson, and Harold Darke. The service is available on BBC Sounds until the 25th March.

Our Sunday Worship service for BBC Radio 4 will be aired in June, and we look forward to sharing music by Orlando Gibbons to mark the 400th anniversary of his death.

Choir performs at the inaugural Commonwealth Peace Prize event, attended by the King and Queen

On the 10th March 2025, the Choir were honored to have been invited to sing at the inaugural Commonwealth Peace Prize event at Marlborough House, London. The ceremony was attended by Their Majesties The King and Queen, and High Commissioners of the 56 Commonwealth countries.

The launch of this new prize, which “aims to reward excellence in peacebuilding and celebrate long-serving standard-bearers who are also role models for young people”, also marks Commonwealth Day 2025. To celebrate, the Choir sung a new work arranged especially for the occasion by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

That Sweet City: New Album Release

Our latest album, That Sweet City, featuring works by Vaughan Williams and Leighton written for Queen’s, reached number two in the specialist classical charts and featured on Gramophone Magazine’s Critics’ Choice 2024. The orchestra for the recording is the Britten Sinfonia, with tenor soloist Nick Pritchard. The Choir was delighted to have been joined by Queen’s Old Member and Honorary Fellow Rowan Atkinson (Engineering, 1975) as the narrator for An Oxford Elegy.

First, Kenneth Leighton composed his cantata Veris gratia during the final year of his undergraduate studies at Queen’s, and it was first performed in Hall by the Eglesfield Musical Society in its Trinity Term concert in 1951. This is the first recording of the piece. A year later saw the première at Queen’s of one of the last major works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, An Oxford Elegy, for choir, orchestra, and narrator, setting poetry by Matthew Arnold which paints an idyllic picture of the Oxfordshire countryside and includes the famous description of Oxford as ‘that sweet city with her dreaming spires’. Rowan Atkinson comments on joining the choir for this recording:

“When I was as a postgraduate student at Queen’s, I wanted to join the College choir very much, but I always failed to meet the required standard. I can’t tell you how pleasing it is, 50 years later, for my voice to feature on a recording by The Queen’s College Choir…albeit having sneaked in there, if you will, via the back door.”
— Rowan Atkinson

To read more, please click here.