Music at St Oswald's

23/05/2026

This Sunday is the feast of Pentecost - AKA the church's birthday! With the sending of the Holy Spirit on Jesus' followers, fifty days after His resurrection, they were finally equipped to spread the Gospel message to all people. Our anthems for both the Parish Eucharist and Choral Evensong this week both invoke the Holy Spirit, asking for inspiration and wisdom to continue the church's work today.

16/05/2026

We marked Ascension Day on Thursday - relocated to St Oswald's due to the weather from our usual setting of Finchale Priory, which we hope to return to next year. We now wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus as he returned to his Father, which we'll mark next Sunday with Pentecost; in the meantime, we continue our celebration of the Ascension with some wonderful Mendelssohn this Sunday, plus voluntaries by Mathias and Grieg.

09/05/2026

08/05/2026

Our first service of Choral Evensong for this term will be held this Sunday, and it promises to be a cracker - Parry's 'My soul, there is a country' (the first of his Songs of Farewell) is an absolute gem, and will be sung alongside gorgeous liturgical settings by Dyson and Joanna Forbes L'Estrange. We also have Tallis' ever-beloved setting of words from John's gospel at the morning Eucharist.

02/05/2026

We were delighted to welcome our students back to choir practice on Thursday evening this week, and incredibly thankful to them for giving their time and energy to our music-making during the very busy exam season! We hope you'll be able to join us for our services this term - there's some wonderful repertoire coming up. Stay tuned!

25/04/2026

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is sometimes known as 'Good Shepherd Sunday'; the Gospel reading is from John 10, in which Jesus describes himself as a shepherd who knows his sheep by name and is willing to lay down his life for them. We sing as the anthem a paraphrase of Psalm 23, set by James Leith Macbeth Bain (Brother James) - "The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want".

We're also delighted to be giving thanks at the Parish Eucharist for the birth of Mary Grace Henderson, granddaughter to our churchwarden, Andy.

18/04/2026

There's been a bit of a break in our posting due to some technical issues, but we're now back just in time for our choir to return to singing following a well-earned post-Easter break. Tomorrow, as we hear the story of Jesus meeting two of his disciples on the road Emmaus and breaking bread with them, we sing Margaret Rizza's setting of a poem by David Adam, invoking God's presence as we share the Eucharist together.

There's no evening service at St Oswald's tomorrow, as elsewhere in our benefice we'll be holding a Civic Service at St Helen's, Kelloe, at 4pm, including the Right Worshipful the Mayor of Durham, Cllr Gary Hutchinson.

02/04/2026

As the Passion story begins to unfold, tonight we commemorate the Last Supper which Jesus shared with his disciples, and which is the basis of one of the most central elements of our faith - the Eucharist. We then join Jesus in vigil in the garden of Gethsemane, watching and waiting for his arreset and trial.

27/03/2026

Our celebration of Holy Week begins this Palm Sunday with a procession from our church Institute building across Church Street and into church, marking Jesus' entry into Jerusalem in the lead up to the Passion story we'll be remembering through the week. The service starts in the Institute at the normal time of 11:00; if you'd prefer not to process and simply wait for us in church, please feel free to do so!

There's also Evening Prayer at 6:00pm as usual, with some wonderful music to look forward to across both services.

13/03/2026

For Mothering Sunday, we'll be singing a setting of Psalm 23, adapted and composed by all-round musical virtuoso Bobby McFerrin. Dedicated to his mother, it uses feminine pronouns for God throughout, and is essentially a standard Anglican psalm chant!

Then we have our final Choral Evensong of term, featuring a movement of Vivaldi's Gloria with choral scholars Sophie and Matthew singing alto and playing cello respectively.