Verdi: Messa da Requiem 2025

Musical Director Robert Dean comments:

A  performance of Verdi’s mighty and theatrical Messa da Requiem is always a special event. It was the first choral work I heard in concert and the intense drama of the Dies Irae with its mightily booming Bass Drum punctuation still seems as hair-raising and apocalyptic to me today as it did when I was a boy of 8. We last sang it in 2016, but that performance remains vividly etched in my memory and the work enjoys enduring popularity with choir, orchestra and audiences alike.

Robert’s predictions proved insightful, with a record-breaking 110 singers attending the Workshop on 23 November; and all singing places taken for the 22 February Concert performance in front of a paying audience of more than 200.

Oxford Orpheus was able to make donations of £1,500 to the Oxford Bach Choir’s Schools Programme; and of £3,800 to the Choir with No Name, who committed to evaluating the potential for a new choir for the homeless in Oxford.