Serenna Wagner & David Jones as Mother and Father

Oxford Open Doors

PAVLOVA WIND QUINTET & RADCLIFFE STRINGS 

Exeter College (Saturday, 4pm)

Sheldonian Theatre (Sunday 4pm)

Admission free

If you are in Oxford for Open Doors weekend, make sure you catch Pavlova Winds and Radcliffe Strings in a performance of Brahms’ Serenade No.1 in Din its 1858 scoring for wind/string nonet (it was expanded into full orchestra score a year later) in the lovely setting of Exeter College. You can catch the Pavlova Wind Quintet again the following day at the Sheldonian for a light-hearted, 45-minute concert of classical music favourites.

CLARA SCHUMANN: A MUSICAL THREAD 

St Andrew’s Church, Headington

Saturday, 7.30pm

Admission free

Don’t miss this special concert devised by pianist Joan Taylor and baritone Bryan Jenner to celebrate the bicentenary of Clara Schumann, wife of Robert Schumann and widely revered as a composer, pianist and teacher.

The Avant Piano Trio join them for a programme of some of Clara’s popular lieder and piano pieces alongside a few rarities. 

Oxford Coffee Concerts

ADDERBURY ENSEMBLE

Holywell Music Room

Sunday, 11.15am

Tickets: 01865 305305 or www.ticketsoxford.com

Tickets are selling fast for this concert, which sees the return of the Adderbury Ensemble to the Holywell along with regular guest clarinettist Fiona Cross in a programme of Mozart and Brahms, directed by Benjamin Gilmore.

Mozart’s String Quartet No.16 in E flat majorwas written in Vienna in 1783 and is the third of his six quartets dedicated to Haydn. Written just over 100 years later, in 1891, Brahms’ sublime Clarinet Concerto in B minorwas inspired by German clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, whose virtuosity enticed Brahms out of retirement.

Opera Anywhere

HUMPERDINCK: HANSEL & GRETEL

The Amphitheatre, Waterperry

Sunday, 2pm

Tickets: https://operaanywhere.com

Serenna Wagner & David Jones as Mother and Father

If you missed Opera Anywhere’s reimagined version of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretelin Sunningwell last week, there’s another chance to catch it at Waterperry on Sunday. Director Serenna Wagner has moved the action to wartime Britain, and Harry and Gracie have been evacuated to the countryside into a bleak new existence with a cruel foster mother. Their fairytale book, a gift from their parents, offers an escape into another world, where they get a little more than they bargained for!

Amici della Voce Octet/Chelys Consort

MULTIPART MARVELS OF THE RENAISSANCE

SJE Arts

Sunday, 5pm

Tickets: www.sje-oxford.org

This lovely two-hour concert looks a real treat. David Crown conducts the Amici della Voce Octet, one of Oxford’s newest vocal ensembles, and the acclaimed Chelys Consort of Viols in a programme of polychoral music from the Renaissance.

This includes Tomás Luis de Victoria’s magnificent twelve-part Missa Laetatus Sumas well as music by Guerrero, Schütz and more.