EDEN in Oxford by oxford chamber music festival

xf ord in

22-27 September 2025

Reflecting on 25 extraordinary years of the Oxford Chamber Music Festival, I am filled with immense gratitude. For a quarter century, our festival has stood as a testament to the transformative, uplifting power of music, and I‘ve had the huge privilege of bringing together exceptionally gifted musicians and discerning music lovers from all over the world.

It‘s been an incredible journey and seeing the festival become an integral part of Oxford‘s cultural tapestry, enriching our beloved city with the beauty and power of chamber music a truly rewarding experience.

We‘ve also witnessed OCMF’s impact extend beyond the concert hall, fostering community and connection among our audience and attracting people who didn‘t know they could fall in love with classical music, yet have become loyal followers.

On this milestone anniversary, I‘d like to express heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you who has supported us with such dedication and passion.

To our dear OCMF friends, musicians and audiences- here‘s to many more years of sublime music, meaningful connection, and joyous celebration!

Warmest wishes,

Priya Mitchell, Artistic director

Programme at a glance

Sunday 21st September 12.45 pm

Weston Library, Bodleian Library, Broad Street

Kleio Quartet OCMF Next Generation Artist

Festival Fringe - FREE

Monday 22nd September 7.30 pm

Sheldonian Theatre

Belcea Quartet with Reto Bieri

Between Heaven and Earth

Tuesday 23rd September 8.00 pm

Christ Church Cathedral

Hugo Ticciati & O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra

Echoes of Eden

Wednesday 24th September 1.00 pm

Holywell Music Room

A Place of Peace

Wednesday 24th September 6.00 pm

Holywell Music Room

The Fall

Wednesday 24th September 8.00 pm

Holywell Music Room

The Divine Gift

Thursday 25th September 1.00 pm

The New Space New College

A Waking Dream

Thursday 25th September 3.00 pm

Clore Music Studios, New College

The Pulse of Life

Thursday 25th September 7.30 pm

The New Space, New College

Forbidden Fruit

Friday 26th September 1.00 pm

Holywell Music Room

Birds of Paradise

Friday 26th September 7.30 pm

Holywell Music Room

Out of the Depths

Saturday 27th September 1.00 pm

Holywell Music Room

Innocence Saturday 27th September 7.30 pm

Holywell Music Room

Return to Eden Saturday 27th September c. 9.30 pm

Vaults and Garden Radcliffe Square

OCMF 2025 Party

Violin

Alena Baeva

Priya Mitchell

Hugo Ticciati

Tetiana Lutsyk

Annette Walther

Viola

Sascha Bota

Annette Walther

Cello

Julian Arp

Claude Frochaux

Brian O’Kane

Artists 2025

Double bass

Jordi Carrasco Hjelm

Voice

Emma Bonnici

Luciana Mancini

Piano

Julius Drake

Dirk Mommertz

Irina Zahharenkova

Percussion

Nora Thiele

Flute

Roy Amotz

Clarinet

Reto Bieri

Ensembles

Belcea Quartet

Kleio Quartet

O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra

Composer in Residence

Thomas Adès

“A national t reasure” Philip Pullman

“ The No 1. unmissable musica l event ” B BC Music Maga zine

“ World-c lass by any st a ndards” Time Out

All Tic ket Booking at Tic kets Ox ford tic ketsox ford .com 01865 305305

OCMF 25th Par t y via OCMF website: ocmf.net

£5/10 tickets for 8-25 year olds , book via Tickets Ox ford.

Limited number available!

Kleio Quartet

Sunday 21st September 12.45pm | free

Weston Library, Bodleian Library, Broad Street

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.

Haydn String quartet in D, op50/6 ‘The Frog’

Webern Five movements

Elgar String quartet in E minor

Monday 22nd September 7.30pm | Sheldonian Theatre | £40/£30/£20/£10

Belcea Qua r tet wit h Reto Bieri

Again this year, we are delighted to welcome another of the world‘s great string quar tets , the Belcea quar tet, to open this year‘s festival. The famous introduc tion to Mozar t‘s ‘Dissonance’ quar tet the darkness . Yet in all the exhilarating sparkle, Mozar t gives us t ant alising glimpses of anxiet y and loss . The Belceas are joined by the inspirational clarinet tist Reto Bieri for Mozar t Clarinet quintet, and our distinguished composer-in-residence Thomas Adès contributes his radiant O Albion, a work harking back to late- Beethoven. Naturally, we end with Beethoven‘s last quar tet, swinging from rough comedy, to soul-searching song , to a celestial play fulness . Mozar t ‘ Dissonance’ quar tet in C major, K465 | Moza r t Clarinet quintet in A major, K581 Adès O Albion | Beethoven String quar tet in F major, op135

Echoes of Eden

Tuesday 23rd September 8.00pm | Christ Church Cathedral | £30/£10

Hugo Ticciati & O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra

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

A Place of Peace

Wednesday 24th September 1.00pm | Holywell Music Room | £15/£5

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, 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

The Fall

Wednesday 24th September 6.00pm | Holywell Music Room | £15/£5

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

The Divine Gift

Wednesday 24th September 8.00pm | Holywell Music Room | £25/£10

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, Zahharenkova, Mancini, Mitchell, Mommertz, Walther

A Waking dream

Thursday 25th September 1.00pm | The New Space, New College | £15/£5

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 3.00pm

Clore Music Studios , New College | £10/£5

This Body Percussion workshop is about connection through rhythm. We will use body percussion sounds and voice to celebrate pulsation together. This o er is open for all levels, no instruments needed.

Led by percussionist and improviser extraordinaire Nora Thiele.

Forbidden Fruit

Thursday 25th September 7.30pm

The New Space, New College | £30/£10

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

Birds of Paradise

Friday 26th September 1.00pm | Holywell Music Room | £15/£5

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 | Stravinsky from ‚The Firebird‘ | 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

Out of the depths

Friday 26th September 7.30pm

Holywell Music Room | £28/£10

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, Zahharenkova, Mancini, Mommertz, Walther, Mitchell

Innocence

Saturday 27th September 1.00pm | Holywell Music Room | £15/£5

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

Return to Eden

Saturday 27th September 7.30pm | Holywell Music Room | £30/£10

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, Zahharenkova, Bieri, Frochaux, Bota

Made of mystery, beauty and great British craftsmanship, David Harber’s sculptures and sundials alter your perceptions and change the world around you. As if by magic.

davidharber.co.uk

OCMF 2025 PARTY

Saturday 27th September

c.9:30pm post-concert

Join the artists and OCMF team to celebrate the close of our 2025 festival in style! Hosted by the Vaults & Garden Cafe, there will be special performances alongside the delicious organic food and wine. Limited tickets £50, booking through Eventbrite via the OCMF website Tickets page.

OCMF 2025 Team

Warmest thanks to our team working tirelessly behind the scenes to make the magic happen:

Louise Hughes, Festival Manager | Satu Hoogeveen, Executive Producer

Graham Topping, Programme Notes | Jackie Holderness, Front of House and Marketing

Evie Brenkley, Production Assistant | Clara Büsel, Artist Liaison

Louisa Theart & Julia Walsh Ontoria, Social Media | Barbara Abraham, Catering & Promotions

Trustees: Nicky Brown, Clare Harbord, Brian Hardy, Robert Warner

Huge thanks to our British Artist in Residence Kieran Stiles whose artwork is featured throughout the festival

Warmest thanks to Hanne Abendroth for her inspiring booklet design and generous creative spirit

SUPPORT OCMF IN OUR 25TH YEAR AND RECEIVE

PARTY INVITES AND PRIORITY BOOKING

FRIEND. £100

Regular news and updates | Priority booking | Name in programme and on website

One ticket to post- concert reception with the artists

JOINT FRIENDS . £150

Regular news and updates | Priority booking | Name in programme and on website

Two tickets to post- concert reception with the artists

YOUNG FRIEND. £50 (under 35)

Regular news and updates | Priority booking | Name in programme and website

One ticket to post- concert reception with the artists

PATRON. £500

Regular news and updates | Priority booking | Name in programme and on website

Two tickets to a concert & two tickets to post- concert reception | Invitation to post-festival dinner at The Vaults | Invitation to a Masterclass

GIFT MEMBERSHIP

It is possible to sign up a friend or family member with Gift Membership. Simply tick the Gift Membership box on the Friends membership form and include their name in the Festival Programme information, or tick the relevant box for them to remain anonymous.

Festival Pass – Priority access to all events and exclusive behind the scenes access

Your OCMF 2025 Festival Pass gives you:

Invitation to the VIP Reception to meet the artists

A saving of £73 compared to buying individual tickets

One ticket that gives you access to all events

Priority access to events so you can choose the best seats

Available from Tickets Oxford box Office for £195.

Thank you to our generous Supporters and Partners

Belacqua Trust | Kathleen Trust | Doris Field Charitable Trust | James Malcomson | Janine Aron

Belacqua Trust | Robin Swailes | Kathleen Trust | Doris Field Charitable Trust

Brian Hardy | Graham & Hilary Laurie | Our Friends Members

James Malcomson | Janine Aron | Graham & Hilary Laurie | Our Friends Members

Photo Credits

Cover&back Cover © Kieran Stiles | Priya Mitchell © Serban Mestecaneanu | Oxford Window © AdobeStock | Thomas Adés © Marco

Skyline © AdobeStock | Nora Thiele © Guido Werner | Luciana Mancini © Ion Marquez | Jordi Carrasco Hjelm © private | whale

Information in this brochure is correct at time of going to press.

Information in this brochure is correct at time of going to press. OCMF reserves the right to change the advertised dates, times, programme and artists without notice.

OCMF reserves the right to change the advertised dates, times, programme and artists without notice.