The year is drawing to a close and we have just finished our third and last public performance for the year. We returned to the beautiful Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, Goring on Saturday 13th October. Our soloists were our music team of Helen Swift and Tim Croston. ‘Covid willing’, our next public performance will be on 26 February at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford.

If you are looking for Christmas Present ideas… why not consider becoming a choir patron?

Benefits include:
A free ticket for our Autumn or Spring Concert
Reserved seats at concerts

The Oxford Welsh are back! Our first live performance after 18 months of Zoom! The whole choir felt that a sort of ‘normality’ has at last returned.
We only sang one 30 minute set at the show, however, it was much appreciated by the audience and the choir members. It demonstrated that we can still sing together and that our voices are still able to project and harmonise. We sang a mixture of songs from the very traditional ‘Rachie’, through to ‘World in Union’ and ‘Let it be me’, finishing with ‘Anfonaf Angel’.

Our rehearsals continue on Thursday evenings in our new venue in Cowley. Click here for details If you would like to consider joining us.

Our next concert is on 16th October at St Leonards Church, Priors Marston.

Following that on 13 Nov 2021 we have a concert at the Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, Goring. 

Our previous home was getting rather small for the choir numbers and the choir committee have found new premises very close to the choirs original ‘home’. For details check the Join page.

For established members of the choir you will be pleased to hear that there is ample parking and a bar for afterwards.
For new members, we would really love to see you, however, it might be nice to wait until we have had a couple of weeks to settle in, plus you would meet our full staff when they return from annual leave.

In addition to his day job, Alex Howgego, previous accompanist, has been performing as a member of the Attic House Studio Band. They recently released this wonderful cover version of ‘Before He Cheats’.

Our 2018 award winning soloist, Samantha Oxborough, has released an unusual duet with herself. She is singing the Lakme Flower Duet. Unfortunately it only has a Facebook link. I hope that you like it.

Finally, in Germany, mezzo soprano Anna-Louise Costello will be singing La Ciesca in an upcoming production of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi with Berlin based Passaggio Oper. More details on their Facebook page.

Our other soloists are also busy, ready to sing for for the public as soon as it’s possible.

The musicians were: Kelly McCusker & Jon Spinner on violin. Kate Bickerdale playing viola & Peter Wilson on cello.
The flautist was Yvonne Mcllwain, John Bickerdike played trumpet and Ste Morris provided clarinet & bass clarinet.
Jonathan French was the accompanist and Helen Swift was MD.

Daffodils are associated with St David’s Day in March, however, as a chorister we start to prepare for the day months ahead. This year there will be no public St David’s Day in Oxford, Covid has caused the cancellation of both our Celebration in The University Church and also the Welsh service in Jesus College Chapel. This sad news made me think about other happier Celebrations which I would like to share with you.

Firstly, from 2011 is the traditional song Hen Fenyw Fach Cydweli. The song begins with Lyn Davies telling the story of the sweet shop where ‘The dear old lady of Kidwelly. A seller of sweets is she, Counts out ten for a halfpenny. But always eleven for me.’

The day before the concert I had bought a large bag of ‘losin du’, ‘black sweets’, which Lyn handed to the audience. They were passed back until by the third row a ‘little old lady’ took the nearly full bag of sweets and put them in her enormous handbag. No persuasion from other audience members could release them!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Oy0ZU6T_Bo0 >