High notes for Oxford

Oxford has always been alive with the sound of music, but this year has been particularly remarkable for the University’s Faculty of Music.

In October, Professor Edward Higginbottom started the academic year by becoming the first Choral Professor in a UK university. ‘It shows choral music to be a fully integrated part of the academic activity of the University, supported by our unique college structures for music in chapel, and particularly the provision made by the three choral foundations in Oxford (Christ Church, Magdalen and New College)’, he said. ‘One of my roles as Choral Professor is to highlight the “contemporary” nature of choral performance in the University. The pedagogy we adopt must be suited to our times, and effective in a contemporary context.’

Professor Higginbottom, who continues as Director of New College Choir alongside his new role, was also proud to announce that the choir had won a prestigious Gramophone award in the ‘Early Music’ category for its recording of music by Nicholas Ludford. Under Professor Higginbottom’s direction, the choir has achieved international recognition and has brought choral music of high quality to an increasingly wide-ranging public through recordings and concerts worldwide. ‘It says much about the potential and capacity of the choral tradition and practice in Oxford that this level of success can be achieved’, he said.

And it was not just the New College Choir that has been in the spotlight. The Choir of The Queen’s College recorded music for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth film in the series based on J K Rowling’s novels. After working on the music with BAFTA-winning composer Nicholas Hooper, the choir went to Abbey Road Studios, spending a morning in the famous Studio One, the world’s largest purpose-built recording studio. The piece recorded by the choir is a ‘simple but highly evocative’ song, ‘In Noctem’.

A further development for the Faculty of Music has been the announcement that the post of Visiting Professor of Opera Studies, which is thought to be the only post of its kind in the UK, is to be revived. The first postholder is to be named shortly.

Musical scholarship has also been in the headlines. Oxford’s Faculty of Music topped the research rankings in its category following the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), with 50 per cent of its research rated as ‘world-leading’ and the largest number of research-active staff submitted by any higher education institution in the UK. Further, it was ranked the best UK music department by both The Times and the Independent in their most recent surveys. ‘This has been a fantastic year for music’, said Faculty Board Chair, Professor Eric Clarke. ‘And the Faculty’s outstanding RAE result has added to the incredible diversity of music-making that goes on within the University.’ During the year Professor Clarke delivered the Royal Holloway/British Library Distinguished Lecture series in Musicology on the topic of ‘Musical Subjectivities’ at the British Library. He is the third current member of the faculty to be invited to deliver the series in its 10-year history.

Even the Bodleian celebrated this year’s choral theme, with its winter exhibition entitled Hallelujah: The British Choral Tradition. It explored the history of choral music in Britain and its contribution to our shared cultural heritage. The exhibition included a wide range of music masterpieces, plus manuscripts written by the composers’ own hands. It also celebrated four composers with anniversaries in 2009 – Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn, all of whom made major contributions to the British choral scene.Richard Ovenden, Keeper of Special Collections and Associate Director at the Bodleian Library, said: ‘The library has been collecting music material for centuries. By supporting scholarship in Oxford’s world-class Music Faculty and supporting the rich music performance scene in and around Oxford, the library has made a major impact on the British choral music scene. We were delighted to showcase that contribution.’

March saw the 100th anniversary of the founder and benefactor of Oxford’s Bate Collection – Philip Bate. It is one of the finest collections of music instruments in the world, with more than 2,000 instruments from Western orchestral music traditions. Bate died 10 years ago at the age of 90. He was convinced there was a purpose in his musical instrument collection concerned with the interpretation of music, and that, if the instruments were properly maintained, they could be used. In 1970, he made a gift of 300 instruments to the Faculty of Music, on condition that it be used as a teaching collection and given a specialist curator to care for it and lecture.

The collection has expanded and today houses one of the most important music collections in the country. In this anniversary year, the Bate Collection chose to highlight the unique musical qualities of the least well-known instrument of the keyboard family, the clavichord, with a concert by one of Europe’s leading performers, Carole Cerasi. ‘It was a privilege to have a performer of Carole Cerasi's calibre to mark such an important date for us’, said curator Andy Lamb.

With distinguished performers still in mind, the academic year came to an end with a masterclass given by internationally renowned pianist Mitsuko Uchida, who was in Oxford to receive an honorary degree. Dame Uchida, who was awarded a DBE ‘for services to classical music’, coached four fortunate graduate performers in a repertoire that included Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann. ‘She entranced the audience with her combination of musical insight, boundless energy, warm appreciation of her students and tantalising glimpses of her wonderful playing’, said Professor Clarke. ‘In addition, we have had visits and residencies from the Palestinian musician Issa Boulos, Lawrence Dreyfus’s viol consort ‘Phantasm’, the jazz pianist and composer Gwilym Simcock, the Allegri String Quartet, and the inaugural concert of the Faculty’s new Steinway piano by the brilliant French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet.’

He added: ‘When you combine that with the world-class music of Oxford’s chapel choirs and choral foundations, the international visitors at our seminar series and performances of Oxford composers’ works – ranging from opera and symphony orchestra to computer and handcuffed pianist – it’s not surprising that the Music Faculty is top of all the national league tables. We’re already looking forward to the exciting year ahead.’