This year is the centenary of the 1918 Armistice, so Oxford had a number of services and concerts to commemorate the event. I was lucky enough to sing in some of them.
When walking around Oxford during the week leading up to Remembrance Day (Nov. 11, our Veterans’ Day), I saw lots of people wearing a poppy flower on their jacket or shirt, which is a tradition here in England. Stores sell them, and even the porter’s lodge of every college offers them to students to wear. For a few services with my choir, we wore them on our robes.
Last Friday I was fortunate to be part of a concert titled “In Memoriam” – the first half featured the Oxford Consort of Voices and the Oxford Girls’ Choir singing Purcell’s Funeral Sentences and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. The second half was Mozart’s Requiem, which was performed by the Keble College Choir (the one I’m in) and the Somerville College Choir combined, under the direction of Edward Higginbottom, former director of the New College Choir. It took place in the Sheldonian Theater and attracted a good number of people who mainly wore black and had poppies on their lapels. What I’ve come to love about the Sheldonian is that the windows near the top of the theater are mostly open, so you can always hear what music is being played inside when you are nearby.
On Sunday, we had a Remembrance Day service at Keble. For Eucharist we sang Duruflé’s Requiem, one of my favorite works (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKA_ORP5f84), and the names of the men from Keble College who died in WWI were read out. Similar to the US, a bugler played a solemn call before a moment of silence.
It was a special weekend of remembrance and I was so glad to be part of it.
