ORGAN RECITALS
Each Wednesday at 1.10pm during term time we host an informal lunchtime recital which ends before 2pm. Admission is free with a retiring collection. For disabled access please speak to the Porters Lodge (01865 279120).
Join us to enjoy the sparkling sound of one of the UK’s finest organs, bathed in the glorious architecture and acoustic of the Baroque chapel.
If you have any further enquiries please ring the choir office on 01865 289177 or email choir@queens.ox.ac.uk
TRINITY TERM 2024
Wednesday 24 April - Arthur Hope-Barton - Sherborne Abbey
Wednesday 1 May - Luke Mitchell - The Queen’s College, Oxford
Wednesday 8 May - George Castle
Wednesday 15 May - Ed Gaut - Keble College, Oxford
Wednesday 22 May - Simon Reichert - Neustadt
Wednesday 29 May - David Thomas - Shrewsbury School
Wednesday 5 June - Laurence John - St David’s Cathedral
Wednesday 12 June - Chris Bragg - St Andrew’s University
24 april - arthur hope-barton
sherborne abbey
Manuel Rodrigues Coelho (1555-1635)
Tento do 2º tom
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Toccata et Fuga in F BWV 540
Vater unser im Himmelreich BWV 682
Vater unser im Himmelreich BWV 683
Nicolaus Bruhns (1665-1697)
Praeludium in e
Arthur Hope-Barton is Organ Scholar of Sherborne Abbey and School where he accompanies for the Abbey’s boys’ choir and the newly formed girls’ choir. He regularly contributes to the Abbey’s weekly organ recital series as well as his own growing recital engagements. He assists with multiple aspects of the school’s musical activities including accompanying for its choirs. He studies organ with Margaret Phillips. He was previously at Shrewsbury school where he studied with Callum Alger. Arthur will be joining Queen’s as an Organ Scholar next academic year.
1 may - luke mitchell
the queen’s college
Nicolaus Bruhns (1665-1697)
Praeludium in G
Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1699)
Kyrie III Cromorne en taille à 2 parties
Gloria IV Rècit de tierce en taille and Gloria VII Fugue à 5 from Livre D’Orgue
Louis Marchand (1669-1732)
Dialogue (2eme Livre)
Quatuor (Pièces Choisis)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Prelude and Fugue in e BWV 548
Luke Mitchell is currently a final-year student and Senior Organ scholar at The Queen’s College, Oxford, and has for two years been musically directing New Chamber Opera Studio, and being a repetiteur scholar. As Organ Scholar at Queen’s alongside accompanying and occasionally directing the choir, he has performed as a continuo player with the Academy of Ancient Music and Instruments of Time and Truth, as well as twice live on BBC Radio 3 as an organist. Prior to this, he was Organ Scholar of Worcester Cathedral, where he became a prize-winning Associate of the Royal College of Organists, and at Winchester College, where he gained an LTCL with distinction in harpsichord performance, and has appeared as soloist and director at the Keble Early Music Festival. As a harpsichordist, he has given solo recitals across Oxford, is active as a song accompanist and continuo player, and made a concerto appearance at KEMF 2023. With New Chamber Opera he was been the Musical Director for Blow: Venus and Adonis and Pepusch: The Death of Dido, alongside directing a concert of Vivaldi and Pergolesi with Austin Haynes and Maryam Wocial, and Grands Motets by De Lalande, and Oratorios by Carissimi and Charpentier. This year, he has directed Purcell’s King Arthur, Charpentier’s Actéon, and in June conducts Weldon’s the Judgement of Paris, alongside his work with Deitatis, and was Conducting Scholar with the University Schola Cantorum 2022-2023. Next year, he takes up a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying harpsichord, having studied with Laurence Cummings and Penelope Cave, and organ recently with Jeremiah Stephenson, Steven Farr, Pieter van Dijk and James McVinnie.
8 may - george castle
15 may - ed gaut
22 may - simon reichert
neustadt
Dietrich Buxtehude (ca. 1737-1707)
Präludium in g Minor BuxWV 149
Georg Böhm (1661-1733)
Vater Unser im Himmelreich
Matthias Weckmann (ca. 1619-1674)
Komm, Heiliger Geist (3 Verse)
Tilo Medek (1940-2006)
Gebrochene Flügel (1975)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Sonate VI G-Dur BWV 530
Vivace
Lente
Allegro
Simon Reichert is music director of the Stiftskirche Neustadt (palatina / Germany). His concert tours reaches all over Europe from the polar region in sweden the north to Italy in the south, e.g. cathedrals as Hamburg St. Michaelis, Leipzig St. Nikolai, Stuttgart Stiftskirche, Copenhagen Cathedral, Nuremberg St. Lorenz and historical organs as Waltershausen, Freiberg, Dresden, Norden, Hamburg St. Jacobi and Stade. His repertoire contains all epoques from the gothic repertoire of the middle ages to first performances of living composers. He works regularly with chamber music partners as Stefan Arzberger (violin), Rupprecht Drees (trumpet), Wolf Matthias Friedrich (bass), Martin Jopp (baroqueviolin), Christopher Jung (baritone), Benno Schachtner (countertenor), Gunta Smirnova (soprano), Ruth Velten (saxophone), Henning Wiegräbe (trombone) and the Mandelring stingquartet. As soloist he was invited by the orchestras Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie Herford, Cappella Istrapolitana Bratislava and Orchestre de Chambre du Luxembourg.
29 may - david thomas
shrewsbury school
William Mathias (1934-1992)
Fanfare
Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
Chorale Partita: Christus, der ist mein Leben P.376
William Byrd (c.1540-1623)
Fantasia a6 (II) T.389
Transcribed for organ by David Thomas (first performance)
J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Chorale Prelude: Dies sind die heiligen zehn Gebot BWV678
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
Joie et clarté des Corps Glorieux
Amy Summers (b.1996)
O lux beata Trinitas
Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)
Postlude in d minor op.105 no.6
David Thomas began his musical training as a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford, under Dr Bernard Rose. At the age of 13 he began organ lessons and in 1983 became Organ Scholar of The Queen's College, Oxford, studying organ with James Dalton and Kimberly Marshall and singing with Margaret Philpot, as well as reading for a degree in Music. He was also a member of Schola Cantorum of Oxford.
After a brief spell in Cathedral music, he started teaching and, during a career spanning over 35 years, has held posts at several prestigious schools including The King's School in Canterbury, Fettes College in Edinburgh (Director of Music), Reigate Grammar School (Headmaster), The Purcell School (Headmaster) and Winchester College (Director of Music).
David is an experienced conductor, organist and singer, and has performed on radio and television, made several recordings and toured widely. He has directed a wide variety of groups from choirs to jazz bands, conducted works ranging from Mozart’s Requiem to Cole Porter’s Anything Goes, and in venues including the Fairfield Halls, Westminster Abbey and Winchester Cathedral. He was previously Musical Director of the Esterhazy Chamber Choir in Lewes, and of the Winchester Music Club, with whom he conducted several major works including Bernstein Chichester Psalms, Bach Magnificat, Handel Messiah, Haydn Nelson Mass, Brahms Requiem and Vaughan Williams Dona nobis pacem.
He is currently Chapel Organist at Shrewsbury School and Musical Director of The Phoenix Singers of Shrewsbury. Engagements this season include recitals at St Chad’s Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury Abbey, and Chester Cathedral. He is delighted to return to Queen’s again this year, some 40 years since his first recital here.
5 june - laurence john
12 june - chris bragg
st andrew’s university
Pier Damiano Peretti (b 1974)
Ricerare medii toni (2004)
Heinrich Scheidemann (c1595-1663)
Canzon in G
Francesco Correa de Arauxo (1584-1654)
From Facultad Organica (1626)
Tiento de medio registro de dos tiples de segundo tono
Hans Friedrich Micheelsen (1902-1973)
Orgelkonzert no.2, op. 34 ‘Es Sungen drei Engel’ (1943)
Tokkata
Kanzona
Fuge
Chris Bragg was born in Stirling and is a former Organ Scholar of Dunblane Cathedral. His undergraduate organ study was undertaken at the former RSAMD in Glasgow, after which he completed a Master’s degree at the Amsterdam Conservatory. His teachers included Michael Harris, Pieter van Dijk and Pier Damiano Peretti. In addition, he studied church music at the Utrecht Conservatory and clavichord with Menno van Delft. He has performed solo recitals in six European countries and in the USA. Solo recitals during 2024 include concerts in Ireland, and on the 1631 Kiespenning organ at Wijk bij Duurstede in the Netherlands.
Chris Bragg is Head of Programming at the University of St Andrews Music Centre where he was closely involved in the design and development of the award-winning Laidlaw Music Centre building and the housing of the 1868 T.C. Lewis organ in the unique McPherson Recital Room. He is also Artistic Director of St Andrews Organ Week, organist of St Salvador’s Episcopal Church in Dundee and St James the Great Episcopal Church in Cupar, and is active as a performer, teacher and translator. An extensive writer on matters relating to organ design and history, he contributes regularly to the Rhinegold journal, Choir and Organ.
Passionate about the conservation and promotion of historic organs, Chris Bragg is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and founder/project leader of Sowne of Organe (www.sowneoforgane.com) which seeks to document, in sound and image, Scotland’s diminishing stock of significant unaltered instruments. His solo recitals have included performances on some of Europe’s most important historic organs such as those at Ostönnen (Anon, 1430, the oldest playable organ in the world), Tangermünde (Hans Scherer the Younger, 1624), Zutphen (Hendrik Bader, 1643), Chaource (Antoine Le Bé, 1698), St Germain en Laye (Cavaillé-Coll 1852/1888) and the Maria Magdalena Kyrka in Stockholm (Åckerman & Lund, 1878/1927).