Full ticket links will be announced in late July 2025
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OCMF 2025:
22-27 September 2025
Every year the Oxford Chamber Music Festival brings together some of the most exciting classical musicians in Europe to live and play together for a week. Creative sparks fly as the players exchange musical partners and tackle the widest variety of sound-worlds.
“a musical miracle” – Daily Telegraph
“world-class by any standards” Time Out
With this year’s special 25th anniversary festival we hope to create a musical Eden in an increasingly troubled world. We celebrate in sound the glories of nature’s garden; explore the music of innocence and of human desire; and offer works which suggest the drama of the Fall, and the journey back to a state of spiritual grace.
Sunday 21st September 12.45pm
Weston Library, Bodleian Library, Broad Street
Kleio Quartet
Festival Fringe – OCMF Next Generation Artists
A free pop-up concert in the Weston Library for our OCMF NEXT GENERATION ARTISTS initiative – giving a platform to rising stars among British chamber groups. The Kleio quartet is the winner of the 2023 Carl Nielsen International Chamber Music competition, and a BBC New Generation Artist. Their programme embraces Elgar‘s single, elegiac String Quartet, the tiny, exquisite Five movements by Webern, and Haydn‘s joyful ‘Frog’ quartet.
Elgar String quartet in e minor | Webern Five movements | Haydn String quartet in D, op50/6 ‘The Frog’
Monday 22nd September 7.30pm
Sheldonian Theatre
Belcea Quartet with Reto Bieri
BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH
As last year, we are delighted to welcome another of the world’s great string quartets, the Belcea quartet, to open this year’s festival. The famous introduction to Mozart‘s ‘Dissonance’ quartet seems like the darkest corner of an empty universe, before brilliant light floods in to banish the darkness. Yet in all the exhilarating sparkle, Mozart gives us tantalising glimpses of anxiety and loss. The Belceas are joined by the inspirational clarinettist Reto Bieri for Mozart‘s infinitely tender Clarinet quintet, and our distinguished composer-in-residence Thomas Adès contributes his radiant O Albion, a work harking back to late-Beethoven. Naturally, therefore, we end with Beethoven’s last quartet, swinging from rough comedy, to soul-searching song, to a celestial playfulness.
Mozart ‘Dissonance’ quartet in C major, K465 | Mozart Clarinet quintet in A major, K581 | Adès O Albion | Beethoven String quartet in F major, op135
Tuesday 23rd September 8.00pm
Christ Church Cathedral
Hugo Ticciati & O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra
ECHOES OF EDEN
A return visit for Hugo Ticciati’s brilliant young Swedish chamber orchestra, with a programme that makes startling connections between music old and new. Tavener‘s radiant Mother of God quotes Schubert’s Ave Maria; Lera Auerbach refashions Pergolesi’s vocal masterpiece as a ‘concerto grosso’ for violin and viola; Philip Glass‘s Echorus is a hypnotic passacaglia that sounds anything but baroque. Even John Lennon‘s Across the Universe uses an ancient Sanskrit mantra. In among the meditations, two dramatic masterpieces in Bach‘s harrowing aria, and Pärt‘s Fall and rebirth.
Hildegard von Bingen | Vos flores rosarum | John Tavener Mother of God | Philip Glass Echorus for two violins and strings | Lera Auerbach Dream of the Stabat Mater | J. S. Bach Erbarme dich (Have mercy) from St Matthew Passion | Arvo Pärt Fratres for violin and strings | John Lennon Blackbird and Across the Universe
Bieri, Bota, Mancini, Mitchell, O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra, Thiele, Ticciati
Wednesday 24th September 1.00pm
Holywell Music Room
A PLACE OF PEACE
Join us for an enchanting hour of music, meditation, and tranquility with our festival
musicians! We take an inspiring walk through the Garden of Eden, accompanied by
soothing readings, improvised music, guided breathing exercises, and calming, uplifting masterpieces from several centuries, to include:
J. S. Bach Air from Suite no.3 | Adès Music for the film Colette | Mozart Adagio from Flute quartet K285 | Schumann ‘From Foreign lands – Kinderszenen | John Cage’s innovative piece “Branches”, which incorporates natural sounds
Amotz, Arp, Bonnici, Bota, Drake, Mommertz, O’Kane, Walther
Wednesday 24th September 6.00pm
Holywell Music Room
THE FALL
Last year a new group formed at our Festival, a meeting of minds and cultures between English singer, dancer and actress Emma Bonnici, Swiss clarinettist Reto Bieri, Romanian violist Sascha Bota and Swedish double bassist Jordi Carrasco Hjelm. Their sounds tell of the beauty of nature, the secrets of the moon and mountains, rain, love, the madness of people and the prophecies of birds. This evening they will take you on a musical journey through fantastically diverse and colourful landscapes filled with folk song, free improvisation, and chamber music from Bach to Kancheli. Expect magic!
Bieri, Bonnici, Bota, Carrasco Hjelm
Wednesday 24th September 8.00pm
Holywell Music Room
THE DIVINE GIFT
We explore the polar opposites of Innocence and Experience this evening in Schubert’s effervescent Trout quintet, and the burning passion of Franck‘s famous sonata. Between those extremes, Bach and Biber suggest the first human steps in the garden of Eden, watched over by Sofia Gubaidulina‘s Angel; and our distinguished composer-in-residence Thomas Adès sketches musical portraits of Shakespeare’s shipwrecked courtiers, lost in a kind of Eden – the island setting of Adès’s opera based on The Tempest.
J. S. Bach Prelude in C Major from Well-Tempered Clavier | Biber Passacaglia for solo violin | Gubaidulina An angel | Franck Violin sonata | Adès Court Studies from The Tempest | Schubert Trout quintet
Baeva, Bieri, Carrasco Hjelm, Drake, Zahhrenkova, Mancini, Mitchell, Mommertz, Walther
Thursday 25th September 1.00pm
The New Space, New College
A WAKING DREAM
In a famous musical legend, Bach‘s unique masterpiece, the Goldberg variations, was written for a talented harpsichordist to play at night to soothe (not cure!) his master’s chronic insomnia. It has the endless, amazing inventiveness of dreams, made even more lucid by this now-famous arrangement for strings. John Cage‘s beautiful dreamscape for that mysterious, other-worldly instrument, the marimba, gives Bach a perfect, if unexpected introduction.
Cage Dream | J. S. Bach selections from The Goldberg variations arr. Sitkovetsky for string trio
Bota, Mitchell, O’Kane, Thiele
Thursday 25th September 7.30pm
The New Space, New College
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
Human desire rears its head in twin peaks of Romantic music. One is the great sextet which begins Strauss‘s last opera Capriccio, a duel between an composer and a poet for the love of a Countess; the other (Transfigured Night) is a rapturous avowal of love by a couple walking in the moonlight, written long before Schoenberg turned music upside-down with his twelve-tone ‘system’. Between them we hear one of our composer-in-residence Thomas Adès‘ most-acclaimed works, which is also based on transfiguration – in this case, on old music remade into new.
Richard Strauss String sextet from Capriccio | Thomas Adès Alchymia for clarinet quintet | Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) for string sextet
Arp, Baeva, Bota, Frochaux, Lutsyk, Mitchell, O’Kane, Walther
Friday 26th September 1.00pm
Holywell Music Room
BIRDS OF PARADISE
A veritable aviary of musical birds here, whose natural home is Eden. Vivaldi‘s concerto The Goldfinch mimics the movement, more than the song of the goldfinch. Haydn‘s Lark is a sky-high violin song but (perhaps wisely) not an accurate transcription of a lark’s frenzy. Music’s ultimate bird-fancier Messiaen gives us that great songster the blackbird, almost note-for-note, while Beethoven has nightingale, quail and cuckoo singing over each other. A Catalan folk-song celebrates all birds, and Schumann‘s eerie prophet bird is a messenger from another world.
Vivaldi The cuckoo and The goldfinch | Haydn from string quartet ‘The Lark’ | Messiaen Le merle noir (The Blackbird) and Abîme des oiseaux (Abyss of the birds) | Beethoven Scene by the brook arr. sextet | Trad. arr Casals Song of the birds | Schumann Vogel als Prophet (The prophet bird)
Amotz, Arp, Baeva, Bieri, Bota, Frochaux, Lutsyk, Mitchell, O’Kane, Walther
Friday 26th September 3pm
Clore Music Studios, New College
THE PULSE OF LIFE
A Body Percussion Workshop for all levels – no instruments needed! Led by percussionist and improviser extraordinaire Nora Thiele.
Friday 26th September 7.30pm
Holywell Music Room
OUT OF THE DEPTHS
Two great masterpieces which suggest humanity cast out of Eden – knowing paradise but feeling far away. Brahms‘s piano quartet is deeply connected to his ambiguous feelings for Clara Schumann; Schubert‘s gloriously sunny, lyrical sonata also knows (as he did) the fragility of life. Between these poles we have two great Purcell songs, realised by our composer-in-residence Thomas Adès, and George Crumb‘s astonishing music evoking the great Whale journeying far beneath the sea, from the beginning to the end of time.
Schubert ‘Arpeggione’ sonata | Crumb Vox Balaenae (Voice of the whale) | Purcell arr. Thomas Adès Songs | Brahms Piano quartet no.3 in C minor
Amotz, Arp, Frochaux, Zahhrenkova, Mancini, Mommertz, Walther, Mitchell
Saturday 27th September 1.00pm
Holywell Music Room
INNOCENCE
Four kinds of innocence: Ravel‘s gorgeous and moving celebration of childhood innocence, written for children to play, and based on tales such as Tom Thumb or Beauty and the Beast; Vivaldi‘s ever-fresh sounds of Nature reborn; a mock-innocent musical joke for a friend of our composer-in-residence, Thomas Adès; and one of the funniest pieces ever written, including a slow can-can danced by tortoises, a waltzing elephant, various donkeys (some as fast as racehorses), bounding kangaroos and dancing skeletons in Saint-Saëns‘ famous carnival. Fun for children of all ages!
Vivaldi Spring | Ravel Mother Goose Suite | Adès Sola for solo cello | Saint-Saëns Carnival of the Animals
Baeva, Mitchell, Lutsyk, Walther, Bota, Arp, Frochaux, Bieri, Amotz
Saturday 27th September 7.30pm
Holywell Music Room
RETURN TO EDEN
Schubert‘s marvellous, full-hearted fantasy is one of the few works of his last years without any tragic edge whatever; it seems like two children playing innocently (and sometimes robustly!) in a beautiful garden. In the same playful spirit, our composer-in-residence Thomas Adès spins magical textures around four old English folktunes, and our festival ends with Beethoven Septet.
Schubert Fantasy for violin and piano | Thomas Adès Märchentänze (Fairytale dances) | Beethoven Septet
Mitchell, Mommertz, Baeva, Zahhrenkova, Bieri, Frochaux, Bota
Saturday 27th September c. 9.30 pm post-concert
Vaults and Garden Radcliffe Square
OCMF 25th Festival Party
Join the artists and OCMF team to celebrate the close of our 25th festival in style! Hosted by the Vaults & Garden Cafe, there will be special performances alongside the delicious organic food and wine. Limited tickets £50, with proceeds going to support our 25th Anniversary Campaign.