The University and Cultural Life

The Oxford Playhouse, once the University theatre, is now a theatre for everyone, and the University remains a major financial supporter, including its community education programme.

St John's College owns the Playhouse building, and leases the auditorium and adjoining offices to the Playhouse Trust. The University of Oxford owns the Burton Taylor Studio, which the Playhouse manages for the University.

Oxford Playhouse and The University of Oxford work together in creating opportunities for student drama throughout the year. Students produce work for both the main stage and the Burton Taylor Studio.

The Playhouse produces and tours its own shows, hosts Artists in Residence and presents Playhouse Plays Out, an ongoing series of off-site events which happen at locations across the county.

The theatre's Learning team works with over 15,000 people each year through post show discussions, workshops, work experience, holiday schemes, a youth theatre and a young people’s theatre company.

The Cameron Mackintosh Drama Fund for Contemporary Theatre

This has helped some of the University’s brightest young actors, directors, producers and writers, stage shows during the annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The purpose of the Fund is to aid drama in Oxford and the students involved, by providing funding and by employing the University Drama Officer, who is the main contact between students involved in Oxford theatre and the University itself.

Find out more about The Chair of Contemporary Theatre at St Catherine's College

The Sheldonian Theatre

Designed by Sir Christopher Wren and constructed in the 1660s, Oxford’s most famous concert hall, the circular Sheldonian Theatre, is open to the public for concerts and other performances, as well as to visitors with a historical or architectural interest in the building. 2008 saw the restoration of the allegorical fresco on the Sheldonian’s ceiling, which displays Truth descending on the Arts and Sciences, expelling Ignorance from the University!

The University’s Romanes Lecture

This is a prestigious free public lecture on any subject in science, art or literature given annually at the Sheldonian since 1892. In 2009, Gordon Brown gave a lecture on Science and our Future.

Music societies

The University of Oxford is a hotbed of music societies and groups – ranging from the Early Music Society to the Chamber Orchestra and the Operatic Society – and put on a richly varied range of performances. ‘Out of the Blue’, for example- an all-male acappella group in the University, founded in 2000 has become nationally and internationally renowned.

The Faculty of Music

Oxford University’s Faculty of Music has a long tradition of sponsoring and arranging events at which the general public and local community are welcome. Recent examples of events open to the public and with free admission include master classes by internationally renowned pianist Mitsuko Uchida and Jesus College Visiting Artist, pianist and accompanist Roger Vignoles.

Oxford Philomusica

Tthe orchestra in residence at the University, runs a comprehensive season of concerts open to all. Education and community work is a central part of the Orchestra’s mission: its specialists maintain an ongoing programme of work in schools, hospitals and community centres. 

Holywell Music Room

Wadham College’s simple, elegant Holywell Music Room is also of historical interest, as the oldest purpose-built music room in Europe, and England’s first concert hall. Built in 1742, it remains one of the country’s leading chamber music halls.

Oxford May Music

The University also supports the annual Oxford May Music Festival which was co-founded by Oxford Physicist, Professor Brian Foster and unites some of the finest musicians performing in the UK and leading lecturers in their fields, with lectures and concerts across science, literature, music and the arts.

Musical scholarship in Oxford is supported by the chapel choirs, and in particular by the three choral foundations of Christ Church, Magdalen and New colleges.

Christ Church Cathedral choir is 500 years old and unique in the world as both a cathedral and college choir. The intimate acoustic of its musical home, Oxford’s 12th-century cathedral, has given it a relationship with early sacred music and the rhythm and vigour of contemporary idioms, which is second to none.

Magdalen College Chapel choir retains the same structure as when it was founded in 1480, with 16 boy choristers from Magdalen College School and 12 adult Academical Clerks who are undergraduates of the college. The chapel is among the University’s most active, with a congregation from the local community as well as further afield. 

The choir of New College has gained a worldwide reputation and is known particularly for its stylish performances of Renaissance and Baroque music, with many recording commitments and a full programme of concerts in this country, on the continent of Europe and further afield.

Many University sports facilities are also accessible to Oxford residents. Around 400 local residents as well as University members use the University’s new gym, PULSE, and 350 Oxford residents with no University connections use the Rosenblatt Swimming Pool, the University’s high specification 25-metre pool. Local state schools have swimming lessons here free of charge during the school term. Plans for the expansion of the Iffley Road sports complex will hopefully allow the University to expand sports provision to local people.

The London Olympic Games Organising Committee included the University as an approved training centre in the 2012 Games. The University also worked with partners in the city and region to bring the Olympic torch to the University’s Iffley Road track, the site of Sir Roger Bannister’s 1954 sub-four-minute mile (left).