The OU Choir returns to the Hub Theatre on the Walton Hall campus for its summer concert, which takes place on 25 June,1pm–2pm.

Conducted by Dennis Pim, the programme is based around the theme of time and seasons and includes works by Cecilia McDowall, Bob Chilcott, Dennis Pim and Thomas Morley.

The concert is free and admission is open to all.

Following the success of Bob Chilcott’s Ophelia, Caliban and Miranda performed by the Choir last summer, this concert includes Dances of Time, another of Chilcott’s short choral works for piano and choir. Chilcott sets texts from a variety of sources: Ecclesiastes, King Henry VIII, poems by Thomas Carlyle, Robert Herrick, and American poet Sara Teasdale.

Time and Seasons is a cycle of four poems by war poet Rupert Brooke, set to music for choir, soloist and piano by Dennis Pim, the Choir’s associate conductor and conductor of this concert. The piece was first performed in 1982 in St Michael’s Church on the OU campus. An optional choral accompaniment for the fourth poem was added at a later date.

Thomas Morley is one of the great Tudor madrigalists. The Choir will sing the three of his unaccompanied seasonal madrigals: ‘April is in my mistress face’, ‘Now is the gentle season’ and ‘Now is the month of maying’.

The main work in the concert is Cecilia McDowall’s A Time for all Seasons (Before Words Fail). Composed in 2016, it is set for soprano solo, mixed choir, a small upper voice group, piano and optional percussion. The work is built around the Ecclesiastes text ‘To every thing there is a season’ and is interspersed by a reworking of this text by contemporary award-winning author and poet Kevin Crossley-Holland. McDowall has a distinctive but accessible style that mixes melodic tunes with occasional dissonant harmonies and rhythmic exuberance. Her music is now frequently performed by choirs and artists from around the world.

Soprano soloist Eleanor Stevens enthralled the audience at the Open University Orchestra’s autumn concert in 2024 and the Choir welcomes her return to the Open University to sing in this concert.

Pianist Ros Whatmore is the OU Choir’s accomplished rehearsal accompanist and the Choir is delighted she has agreed to play for the concert.

Booking tickets in advance Admission is free and open to all, and tickets include a printed programme. Tickets for the concert can be reserved in advance via Eventbrite at: https://ouchoir-time-and-seasons.eventbrite.co.uk or watch it online via Stadium. Tickets on the door are subject to availability. The venue is accessible and there is free parking on the campus. We hope to see you there.