Come and Play!

We're so excited to officially announce that OUO will be hosting a Come and Play event for alumni on Sunday 20th September 2026 at the brand new Schwarzman Centre concert hall in central Oxford. This will be part of the wider Oxford Alumni Meeting Minds weekend, coinciding with the college Gaudy celebrations weekend, a great opportunity for a trip back to Oxford! Whether you're playing professionally, if your valves need a bit of oil (or whatever the woodwind/strings equivalent is), or anything in between, we'd love for you to join us. We'll have alumni from matriculation years between 1970s-2020s (or maybe even wider), everyone is welcome.

As an overview, we'll be joined by a couple of alumni conductors for a morning of playing, with plenty of time for coffee and chat too. We're planning to play Bax's Tintagel conducted by Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey and Strauss' Death and Transfiguration conducted by Joe Davies. Please find further details at the bottom of the page, below the sign-up form.

It would be fantastic if you could fill out the sign-up form below to let us know that you'd like to come, or if you can't make it this year but would like to stay up-to-date with future projects, we hope this will be an annual event. If you have any questions, please feel free to send Bradley (Horn, 2017-2025) a message at bradley.young@st-annes.ox.ac.uk.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Details of the day 

Venue: Sohmen Concert Hall, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, Observatory Quarter, Oxford

Arrangements: Let us know you're coming, turn up with your instrument, have a play and have some fun, it's very simple! We are hoping to get a relatively well-balanced orchestra together, but we're more focussed on getting as many people involved and enjoying themselves as possible. There may need to be some flexibility in parts depending on sign-ups but we'll keep you updated as we get closer to the date. This is very much a pilot event and we'll use everyone's experiences to refine events in future years as we build up the orchestra alumni network and engagement.

Repertoire: Our plan for repertoire is Arnold Bax's 1919 programmatic symphonic poem Tintagel, inspired by a trip to the Cornish castle a couple of years earlier, and Richard Strauss' spectacular 1889 tone poem Death and Transfiguration. 

Conductors:

The Strauss will be conducted by Joe Davies, an OUO ('Cello 2015-2018) and St Peter's alumnus who is now a freelance professional conductor including an appointment as the Assisstant Conductor of the English Symphony Orchestra. Joe came back to conduct Rachmaninov and Debussy with OUO in Trinity Term 2023.  

Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey, OUO alumna (percussion) and Director of Performance at St Catherine's College, will conduct the Bax. Cayenna led the orchestra for our first ever overseas tour to Japan in March 2019, following this up with a rare performance and interactive workshop of Clara Schumann's piano concerto in May 2019. More recently, Cayenna was at the helm for our tour of Northern Italy in 2024 and has worked with OUO to workshop new compositions by Afghan composers, many of whom are refugees or in exile.

Timetable: Sunday 20th September 2026

From 8.30am: OUO organisers will be on-site setting up

9am: Alumni arrive

9.30-11.15: First open rehearsal session, finishing with a play-through

11.15-noon: Coffee break in the main cafe

noon-13.45: Second open rehearsal session, finishing with a play-through

13.45-14.30ish: Coffee/lunch in the main cafe