Choral award application form 2024/25 entry

Completing your application

Reference

Please ensure that your reference is sent to your first-choice college of preference by 15 September. Your application will not be considered with just the application form alone.

Audition arrangements

The auditions in Oxford will take place between 25 and 27 September 2023. You will be required for only one of these days, but please keep all three days free until you receive the timetable in early September.

For further details of what you will be asked to do at the auditions, please visit the main choral awards page.

Your chosen prepared piece should be of no more than five minutes' duration.

In addition to the prepared piece and the sight-reading, you will sing a prepared unaccompanied traditional song (folk song).

• You may choose a song from the list below, or offer an alternative song. If you choose an alternative song, please write to owen.rees@music.ox.ac.uk by 15 September to inform us what your chosen song is. Your choice should not be a hymn, a piece of plainsong/chant, or an arrangement that involves piano accompaniment. You can choose a song from any folk tradition and can sing in any language.
• If you choose to perform a song from the list below, please perform all the verses that are included in the edition provided here. If you choose an alternative song, the duration of your performance must be at least 1 minute and no more than 3 minutes; verses should be omitted as necessary in order to fit into the 3-minute maximum.
• You may choose the performing pitch.

List of unaccompanied traditional songs (folk songs)

• O Waly, Waly
• The Salley Gardens
• Scarborough Fair
• The trees they grow so high
• The lark in the clear air
• The Ash Grove
• Early one morning
• Linden Lea
• Drink to me only with thine eyes

Copies of these songs may be downloaded from the website.

Academic assessment and results

It is important to understand that your choral audition is only the first part of your application to study at Oxford, and that crucially you will be required to join the gathered field of candidates applying in October and potentially attending interview in December. For this reason, the University cannot confirm a choral award until the whole process has been completed. What happens immediately following the choral audition is that you will be informed by email that you fall into one of three categories:

1. you have been retained as a choral award candidate at your first-choice college
2. you have been retained as a choral award candidate by a lower-choice college (which will be specified)
3. you are no longer under active consideration as a choral award candidate.

If you receive either the first or second email, you should name the college which has retained you as a choral award candidate as your choice of college on your UCAS application.  You will have to take any written test(s) and submit any written work as required for your subject of choice.

The deadline for the UCAS application is 6pm on 16 October.

If you are no longer being considered as a choral award candidate, you can of course still make an application through UCAS for an academic place at Oxford without the option of a choral award. 

Further information

If you have any questions about the choral award application process, please contact us by email (owen.rees@music.ox.ac.uk or admissions.operations@admin.ox.ac.uk)

For full guidance on the undergraduate admissions process, please refer to our Applying to Oxford pages. 

More information about music at Oxford is available on the Music Faculty's website.