The Queen's College Record 2023

to welcome back Choir alumni to College; the next such event is planned for April
2024. The Trinity Sunday service with University Sermon was greatly enhanced
by the premiere of new anthem – O lux beata trinitas – composed for the Choir by
Matthew Owens (who was Organ Scholar at Queen’s in the 1990s), and generously
commissioned by another Choir alumnus, Cameron Marshall (Molecular and Cellular
Biochemistry, 1991). At the end of Trinity Term we sang for a service attended by King
Charles and the President of Portugal, in the Queen’s Chapel at St James’ Palace,
an event marking the end of the ‘Portugal-UK 650’ celebrations, marking the long
history of alliance between the two countries.
Reports and College Activities
Within the Choir’s concert engagements in Oxford during the year, eighteenthcentury
music featured prominently: a few weeks into Michaelmas Term we
presented a programme evoking the convivial use of music in the meetings of
London’s antiquarian musical societies of that period, such as the (original) Academy
of Ancient Music, and at the end of that term we joined forces with the modern
Academy of Ancient Music for our now annual performance of Handel’s Messiah in
the Sheldonian Theatre. During the Easter vacation the Choir returned to Oxford to
perform Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, once
again in the Sheldonian. The academic year ended with a weekend trip to perform
once again in the concert series at Holy Trinity Church, Bramley, Surrey, organised
by Stuart White (Music, 1975), and to sing for Sunday Eucharist there.
Warm thanks are due to the entire team that ensures the smooth running of the
Choir’s activities and its maintenance of high standards. We wish the Choir leavers
– including Senior Organ Scholar Isaac Adni – all the best for their futures and future
music-making.
Credit: David Fisher
The Choir in the Fellows’ Garden
College Record 2023 | The Queen’s College 47