Festival Voices and violinist Rakhi Singh open Kings Place’s “Curated By…” series with a programme curated by composer Ben Nobuto. The evening features works spanning medieval polyphony, Renaissance madrigals, contemporary compositions, and Nobuto’s own music.

Main Concert Programme

• Sol — Ben Nobuto

• Hockets for Two Voices (Movement V) — Meara O’Reilly

• The Ascendant: No. 2, The Fence Is Gone — Wally Gunn

• O Euchari — Tom Coult

• Beltà, poi che t'assenti — Carlo Gesualdo

• Viderunt Omnes — Pérotin

• Pulse/Shade — Catherine Lamb

• Natural Remedies — Paul Clark

• Partita for 8 Voices (Movement II – Sarabande) — Caroline Shaw

• Hockets for Two Voices (Movement VI) — Meara O’Reilly

• Face Anthem — Ben Nobuto

Oskar and Festival Voices perform Anna Clyne’s Pocket Book LXV at the Arts Foundation Futures Awards ceremony

Festival Voices open Kings Places 2026 Memory Unwrapped season with Fragmented Recollection, an immersive choral journey blending Renaissance polyphony, minimalist classics, and cutting-edge new work. Featuring Tallis, Glass, Ben Nobuto, and a new commission inspired by Hildegard von Bingen, this bold performance premieres fresh music and spans centuries, inviting audiences to explore memory’s shifting nature through sound.

Main Concert Programme

• Blip — Ben Nobuto 

• Three Songs — Philip Glass

• Not a Soul but Ourselves — Roger Marsh

• Lamentations of Jeremiah, Part I — Thomas Tallis

• If Ye Love Me (Remixed) — Thomas Tallis / Remixed by Nico Bentley

A playful evening celebrating the radical spirit of 20th and 21st-century vocal music, curated in collaboration with soprano Eleanor Westbrook. The programme explores pioneering works by Cage, Xenakis, and Aperghis, alongside daring reinterpretations of older music and contemporary works from both established and emerging composers. Featuring Ben Smith on piano, plus a balloon and a toy glockenspiel.

Programme to include:
Georges Aperghis Recitations 9 & 11 (1977)
John Cage Aria (1958)
Jonathan Cole TSS-k-haa (2008)
Liz Dilnot Johnson Pig (2022)
Cheryl Frances-Hoad Le Vampire (2021)
G. F. Handel Ah mio cor (1735 / 2025)
Chris Kirkham (arr.) Bonny at Morn (trad. / 2022)
Geoffrey Poole Heynonnynonny Smallprint (2009)
Iannis Xenakis Pour Maurice (1982)
Annelies Van Parys 3 Haiku’s (2012)
Errollyn Wallen Rain (1994)
Judith Weir Ständchen (1997)

A playful afternoon celebrating the radical spirit of 20th and 21st-century vocal music, curated in collaboration with soprano Eleanor Westbrook. The programme explores pioneering works by Cage, Xenakis, and Aperghis, alongside daring reinterpretations of older music and contemporary works from both established and emerging composers. Featuring Ben Smith on piano, plus a balloon and a toy glockenspiel.

Programme to include:
Georges Aperghis Recitations 9 & 11 (1977)
John Cage Aria (1958)
Jonathan Cole TSS-k-haa (2008)
Liz Dilnot Johnson Pig (2022)
Cheryl Frances-Hoad Le Vampire (2021)
G. F. Handel Ah mio cor (1735 / 2025)
Chris Kirkham (arr.) Bonny at Morn (trad. / 2022)
Geoffrey Poole Heynonnynonny Smallprint (2009)
Iannis Xenakis Pour Maurice (1982)
Annelies Van Parys 3 Haiku’s (2012)
Errollyn Wallen Rain (1994)
Judith Weir Ständchen (1997)

25th anniversary concert, conducted by Justin Bindley

Oskar returns to MK Chorale to sing the baritone solos in Orff’s Carmina Burana.

Conductor - Mark Jordan

Oskar joins the Ardywn Singers for their 60 year Celebration Concert, singing Vaughan Williams' Five Mystical Songs alongside two contemporary works for solo baritone.

Vaughan Williams - Five Mystical Songs (1906-1911)

Missy Mazzoli - As Long as we Live (2012)

Geoffrey Poole - Heynonnynonny Smallprint (2008)

Ardwyn Singers

Conductor - Dave Leggett

Pianist - Nicola Rose

Launching Kings Place’s year-long Earth Unwrapped series, Festival Voices collaborate with Sacconi Quartet in a rare opportunity to hear Terry Riley's masterful Sun Rings performed live. A vibrant collaboration of sound, inspiration, and celebration.

Sacconi Quartet
Festival Voices
Conductor - Gregory Batsleer

What was a night of music theatre like in nineteenth-century Paris? Join us as we explore the French vaudeville, a major landmark in theatre history and grandfather of the modern musical.

If you, too, love a show, come along and dive into the theatre world of nineteenth-century Paris, hear stories of the stage from theatre historians from Durham and Newcastle, and enjoy performances of vaudeville’s top hits by professional singers and the Tyne Youth Company theatre group.

Baritone - Oskar McCarthy

Presenters - Katherine Hambridge, Sophie Horrocks, Hannah Scott.

Oskar performs the London premiere of Laura Bowler’s Lines, Letters and Disinformation, a new ten-minute music theatre work for baritone and electronics as part of VOICEBOX: SHOWCASE.

The cohort of six singers making up the inaugural VOICEBOX cohort gather one last time to share a programme of solo and ensemble works. Details on the Cafe OTO website.

Oskar is grateful to the Michael Cuddigan Trust, The Finzi Trust, SPIN Labs, Hinrichsen Foundation and Vaughan Williams Foundation for their support in the commissioning of Lines, Letters and Disinformation.

Oskar performs the world premiere of Laura Bowler’s Lines, Letters and Disinformation, a new ten-minute music theatre work for baritone and electronics, alongside Iannis Xenakis’ Pour Maurice, as part of VOICEBOX: UNBOUND.

UNBOUND is a showcase for the six singers making up the inaugural cohort of the year-long VOICEBOX project for advanced singers specialising in contemporary vocal performance, led by Juliet Fraser.

Having begun the year at Britten Pears Arts in September 2023 the cohort returns to share a thrilling array of solo and ensemble works, including six world premieres. More details on the Britten Pears website.

Oskar is grateful to the Michael Cuddigan Trust, The Finzi Trust, SPIN Labs, Hinrichsen Foundation and Vaughan Williams Foundation for their support in the commissioning of Lines, Letters and Disinformation.

Oskar produces and performs in the opening of Bold Tendencies 2024 Communion programme.

More than 190 singers from Festival Voices, Citizens of the World Choir, London Youth Choirs, London Gay Men's Chorus, London International Gospel Choir & The Bold Chorus join forces in a monumental celebration of song.

Featuring two world premieres - Songs of Communion by Kristina Arakelyan , a new commission setting texts by bell hooks and Langston Hughes for massed voices, and Mozart Requiem Remixed, FV’s reimagining of Mozart’s choral masterpiece for choir, orchestra and electronics.

Oskar sings the baritone solos in Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

Conductor - Jonathan Rathbone

Cecilia McDowall’s Da Vinci Requiem

Soprano - Katy Thomson

Baritone - Oskar McCarthy

Conductor - Mark Jordan

Piano - Alex Aitken

MK Chorale

Ensemble: HIS MAJESTY'S SAGBUTTS AND CORNETTS, LEADING BAROQUE INSTRUMENTALISTS

Soloists: ANA BEARD FERNANDEZ, THOMAS KELLY, CHRIS FITZGERALD-LOMBARD, BEN MCKEE, OSKAR MCCARTHY

Conductor: GREGORY BATSLEER

Choirs: HCS, HCS YOUTH CHOIRS, HCS VOICES

This is the first ever London staging of Madeleine Dring’s (1923 – 1977) only opera, ‘Cupboard Love’. Written in the early 50s, this work wasn’t performed until a read through in 1983 and it remained unpublished until 2017. A comedy murder ‘whodunit’, it features three characters – the Wife, the Boyfriend and the Husband. This year marks 100 years since Dring’s birth and therefore it seems the perfect time to ‘premiere’ this work especially given that she was a Londoner herself. 

He: Oskar McCarthy
She: Sarah Dacey
It: Sam Oladeinde

Director: Sam Redway Wells

In 1983, Peter Tatchell stood as the Labour candidate for the seat of Bermondsey in the upcoming by-election. Following a bitter and fractious campaign that extensively targeted Tatchell’s gay rights advocacy and left-wing politics, the seat was won by Simon Hughes of the Liberal party (who himself came out in 2006) in what remains the largest swing of any by-election in British political history.

This new multi-media verbatim opera interrogates the personal and political impact of this campaign, and the long shadow it has cast on British politics, using the very words of those who lived through it. Following residencies at Snape Maltings in Aldeburgh and LOD muziektheater in Belgium, we are excited to present a full performance of ‘Bermondsey, 1983’ on the 40th anniversary of this infamous by-election.

Peter Tatchell: Arthur Bruce
Simon Hughes: Oskar McCarthy
Violin: Emily Earl

Music: Robert Reid Allan
Words: Gareth Mattey
Director: Sam Redway Wells

Enchanting Arias is a fun, interactive lunchtime concert presented by Royal Albert Hall in collaboration with OperaEd.

Soprano Susie Gibbons, mezzo-soprano Helen Maree Cooper, tenor Zahid Siddiqui, baritone Oskar McCarthy and pianist Ashley Beauchamp perform a selection of enchanting and wondrous arias from operas including Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel and Bizet’s Carmen.

Performances at 11:00am and 1:30pm

More details available on the RAH website.