Oriel College Chapel Choir
has one of the best mixed, chapel choirs in Oxford. Numbering 25+, including about a third from other colleges, we sing at services twice weekly in the Oriel chapel (Thursday Eucharist and Sunday Evensong at 6pm) as well as a rehearsal on a Tuesday and other special services like Christmas carol services and Candlemas. Our Director of Music is Dr David Maw, a Music tutor at Oriel and the organ scholars also direct, while a committee comprising Oriel choral scholars help to run the choir. We even have a tour each summer vac funded by college – recent destinations include Malta, Portugal and Poland – and we perform at the Oriel Music Society concerts throughout the year.

As well as singing a wide repertoire of sacred music especially English, choral music, it’s a fantastic way to meet people from Oriel and other colleges. Plus two free formal dinners a week, along with feast days such as Candlemas, and of course Christmas dinners (just ask anyone about “five gold rings”) are not to be sniffed at! We also have social events such as choir curry and the annual choir dinner, along with visits and joint services with choirs both from Oxford and beyond.

David Maw
has been professionally associated with the Faculty of Music since 1995, when he was appointed to a Lectureship at The Queen’s College. He has taught, and continues to teach, for several colleges, being currently a Research Fellow and principal College Tutor in Music at Oriel College in conjunction with Lectureships at other colleges.

His research centres on topics in historical musicology (medieval and modern) and in music theory and analysis with an overarching interest in questions of compositional practice and choice. His work on French polyphonic compositions of the 13th and 14th centuries has been especially concerned with the relationship of words and music in the secular song repertories. He has worked also on English chamber music of the first half of the 20th century and on early Beethoven. His current projects include: a new edition of Machaut’s musical works (completing work begun in his doctoral research); a book on Machaut’s songs; a study of the note that ‘represents all modern music’ (Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, its precursors and influence); and a book on composing fugue, deriving from his teaching over the past 15 years. His research received a Westrup Prize in 2006.

He was an undergraduate and graduate student at Oxford, completing his doctorate on Machaut’s songs at Wadham College. He held organ scholarships as both an undergraduate and a graduate student and was active also as a composer during this time. Practical music remains an important part of his activities, and he has received first prizes in composition and organ improvisation from international competitions and made numerous appearances in concerts around France and the UK.

He currently lectures for the Music Faculty on Techniques of Composition and the special topic ‘Polyphony for Plainchant’, both for the Prelims syllabus. He has in the past also lectured on Edition with Commentary, Jazz, The Influence of Fuxian Counterpoint and The New Complexity.