To celebrate Oriel’s 700th anniversary, Oriel Fellow and Director of Music David Maw has organised a series of concerts featuring our past Visiting Fellows in Music.
Dame Sarah Connolly, soprano, with Julius Drake, piano, will be performing in College on Friday, 29 May 2026 from 8pm.
College members can book complimentary tickets by emailing the Music at Oxford box office directly: info@musicatoxford.com
Sarah Connolly was made a DBE in the 2017 Birthday Honours, having previously been awarded a CBE in the 2010 New Year Honours. In 2020 she was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society in recognition of her outstanding services to music.
In 2023 she was awarded The King’s Medal for Music, an award given annually to an outstanding individual or group of musicians who have had a major influence on the musical life of the nation.
She has sung at the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Lucerne, Salzburg and Tanglewood Festivals and the BBC Proms where, in 2009, she was a soloist at the Last Night. Opera engagements have taken her around the world from the Metropolitan Opera to the Royal Opera House, the Paris Opera, La Scala Milan, the Vienna and Munich State Operas and the Bayreuth, Glyndebourne and Aix-en-Provence Festivals.
Highlights in her 2025/26 season include Jocasta Oedipus Rex for The Norwegian Opera & Ballet and Mrs. Patrick De Rocher Dead Man Walking for the English National Opera.
On the concert platform she sings Messiah with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra/Christophe Rousset, The Dream of Gerontius with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra/Matthew Halls, Mahler’s Symphony no. 2 with the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra/Alexander Shelley and the Aalborg Symfoniorkester/Joshua Weilerstein and his Kindertotenlieder with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra/Joel Sandelson and his Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Symphony Orchestra of India/Martyn Brabbins.
Dame Sarah is a Vocal Professor and Fellow at her alma mater the Royal College of Music, a Trustee of the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, and Ambassador for the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras’ Apprentices Programme.
The pianist Julius Drake lives in London and enjoys an international reputation as one of the finest instrumentalists in his field, collaborating with many of the world’s leading artists, both in recital and on disc.
His passionate interest in song has led to invitations to devise song series for Wigmore Hall, London; The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; 92nd St Y, New York; and the Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin.
He curates an annual series of song recitals – Julius Drake and Friends – in the historic Middle Temple Hall in London.
Julius Drake is a Professor of Collaborative Piano at the Guildhall School of Music in London, and he is regularly invited to give masterclasses worldwide.