Celebrating creativity at Mansfield

Our College holds a wealth of exceptional creative talent. Here are just some of the artistic highlights from the past year.

Striking a new chord

James Brown Director of Music

It’s wonderful to be the new Director of Music at Mansfield, succeeding Tom Hammond-Davies. Despite only completing my first term here, I am already appreciating the support of colleagues, the Music Society, and the Chapel Choir. The impressive resources of the College are an added pleasure, including its fine organ and piano, as well as the grandeur of the Chapel with its admirable acoustics. There is an opportunity to grow the profile of music at Mansfield even further, and this is a key part of my appointment. Look out for concerts, masterclasses and new musical initiatives as 2023/24 unfolds.

New scenes

Julia Males (English, 2021) Mansfield Players President

The Mansfield Players have been working in collaboration with our Principal, Helen Mountfield, particularly hard this year to bring students closer to the dramatic arts. In February 2023, we hosted writer-director Samuel West in a monologue workshop entitled ‘Making it New: Bringing Period Speech to Life Onstage’. The session brought together a group of actors who were guided through a masterclass on performance, tackling that tricky realm of archaic or metrical speech from historical texts. Students brought passages from Julius Caesar, The Seagull, and The Duchess of Malfi, making for a varied and wonderfully spiky afternoon.

As Trinity term rolled into focus, we held a new event, ‘The Mansfield New Writing Festival’. Students were set a large pitching window over the vacation to submit short excerpts of new writing (monologues, brief sketches, and the like). We then paired up the scripts with wonderfully enthusiastic student performers, and on a sunny Sunday afternoon in third week, 40-odd Mansfielders settled down in the Fellows’ Garden to watch the performances. The first was ‘The Worm Man’ written by Barbara Niven Garcia (English, 2022), Astrid Kiernan (English, 2022) and Oliver Guilfoyle (Materials Science, 2022) and performed by Eric Balonwu (PPE, 2022). This absurdist and entertaining piece features a starring role for the worms of Mansfield Quad. After such an impressive start, we hope that the New Writing Festival will become an ongoing tradition at our College. I have just handed over to the 2023/24 committee, but the drama continues. Keep your eyes peeled – there are some brilliant plans in the works.

Creative crafting

Kate French (PPE, 2021) Mansfield Art Society President

Although it was only set up in Trinity term 2023, Mansfield College Art Society (MCAS) has already run a varied programme. Our inaugural event was a childhood-throwbacks craft session, designed to take away some of that Trinity stress. We had everything from bracelet making and pipecleaners to potato stamps, helping to transport everyone back to the days of primary school.

At the beginning of 2023/24, we teamed up with Entz to welcome our new freshers with a keychain-making workshop, where participants were able to create personalised keyrings to attach to their new room keys. It was a great way for the new intake to get to know each other, as well as students from other years, in a relaxed environment.

Our most recent event has been an evening celebrating wholesome Christmas crafts, including gingerbread icing, bauble decorating and Christmas-card making. It has been lovely to take some time out from Oxford’s busy terms and get creative.

Musical Mansfield

Nicole Gibbons (English, 2022) Mansfield Music Society Publicity Officer

From the Choir singing in Chapel services each week and rounding out Michaelmas term by delivering a carol concert filled with festive joy, to the Wind Ensemble performing in termly concerts and recitals alongside other talented soloists from across the community, the music scene at Mansfield has been resonating throughout College this past year.

It has been lovely to welcome new members to our musical community at Mansfield, especially our new Director of Music, James Brown. Also new on the scene is Mansfield’s very own student band, Big Slice, who have already performed at The Mad Hatter and Jericho Tavern.

A highlight of 2022/23 was the Choir’s trip to Florence over the summer, during which they sang at two stunning churches – Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce – and ate lots of gelato. We look forward to discovering which new musical adventures lie ahead at Mansfield in the coming year.