Ensemble Isis

Applications for the 2024-25 scholarship are now open. To sign up for auditions, please complete this form no later than 3pm, Thursday 10 October (Week 0, Michaelmas 2024).

 

Founded in 2002 by Prof Robert Saxton composer and conductor Dr John Traill (Director of Music at St Anne’s College), Ensemble ISIS is the Faculty of Music’s contemporary music group dedicated to performing new works by world-class composers as well as the music of talented undergraduate and postgraduate composers in composition workshops and public performances. The ensemble is competitively auditioned through the ISIS Scholars Scheme, engaging the strongest undergraduate and graduate student performers. Auditions take place annually on Monday of 1st week in Michaelmas Term at the Faculty of Music.

Ensemble ISIS has worked with composers Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Hans Abrahamsen, Martin Bresnick, Elliott Schwartz, John McCabe, Anthony Powers, Nicola LeFanu, Rhian Samuel (and many more…) as well as with the the London Sinfonietta and James Bowman. The ensemble has toured outside Oxford, performing in London, at the Three Choirs Festival, the University of Durham, and at Bowdoin College in the USA. Over the years, ISIS has collaborated with local performing groups and organizations such as the Oxford Contemporary Music, Brookes University, the SAE Institute Oxford, and the Oxford Improvisers.

For more information about the ISIS Scholars Scheme please contact events@music.ox.ac.uk

 

Audition Information:

Auditions will take place throughout the day on Friday of Week 0 (11 October). You will be allocated a timeslot the day before, when sign-ups close. You will be asked to perform a short (c. 4 minute) piece or excerpt of a larger work, unaccompanied. You will then be asked to perform a short sight-reading exercise.

Places are allocated over the weekend, with results confirmed no later than the start of Week 1.