A “musical adventure” is how the brochure describes OCM’s spring season, which begins next week with a four-day mini festival, Audiograft, a sonic art event presented in collaboration with Oxford Brookes University.

The season runs until June 14, and over the next four months you can expect an eclectic range of musicians — from the renowned pianist Joanna MacGregor to little-known artists from across the globe — performing a variety of genres, from contemporary classical music to folk, jazz and salsa. Venues vary from conventional spaces, such as Chipping Norton Theatre, to Oxford’s atmospheric Warneford Chapel.

At the heart of the season are two major arts projects that see OCM continuing to stretch its artistic horizons. For director Jo Ross, these mini-festivals distinguish the new season from previous years, while also providing a link by building on past projects.

The first, Editions of You, runs from March 26 to April 24 at Oxford Castle and the O3 Gallery, and follows a similar event during the 2010 season.

Jo explains: “It focuses on a very interesting and slightly underground trend in music publishing, which is around artists who release their own music, but who do so in a way that also uses their own creative, visual art skills, and skills in other media. One thing they do is to create their own covers.”

Editions of You will include a free exhibition, open throughout the month at the O3 Gallery, where you can see the results of these artists’ creativity, in a showcase of existing and specially commissioned artwork.

There will also be regular Thursday night events featuring music by self-releasing artists, bands and DJs, with talks and discussions, as well as a Zine Fair, which will take place in Castle Street Square and will be an opportunity to buy special releases and fanzines unavailable in shops.

The other main project, on throughout April, is the intriguing Ethometric Museum, brainchild of local artist and Brookes lecturer Ray Lee, creator of the internationally-acclaimed sound art project Siren.

In Ethometric Museum, Lee takes over the basement of the History of Science museum, adding to its existing historical collection with a range of scientific relics relating to the little-known branch of ethometrics. These will be enhanced by a unique sound art performance, and Jo Ross has already had a taste of this extraordinary new show.

“I went to see a very small version of it at Battersea, and I really loved the whole feel and idea of it. So we commissioned him to build that piece into a bigger project. It will be in the basement area of the museum, which is a lovely space, and where they’ve got cabinets full of Edison’s original collections and Einstein’s blackboard. So it’s full of intriguing things.

‘Ray’s show is going to add to this with a collection of some might say obsolete, some might say on the edge of reality, pieces of scientific kit, which make sounds and a lot of them move as well.

“It’s a very immersive, quite eerie and quite beautiful experience, where you’re never quite sure what the devices are doing!

“These two projects are indicative of the direction OCM is moving in — trying to develop new work and support artists by commissioning and creating new partnerships with people that are not necessarily the obvious partners to gain new audiences. It’s an opportunity for us to put art right out there in the public realm.”

lFor full details of the new OCM season, visit www.ocmevents.org.