Nicola Lisle chats to some of the student group who will compete in the Choir of the Year contest

The Oxford Gargoyles are named after one of the city’s many iconic images — and now this internationally renowned student jazz ensemble is taking a piece of Oxford to London.

On Sunday, the mixed voice a cappella choir will be heading to the Royal Festival Hall to compete for a place in the finals of the Choir of the Year competition, the largest amateur choral singing competition in the UK, and their repertoire will reflect their Oxford roots.

“We have a piece called Magnifiscat, which is taking our Oxford influences to the extreme,” says choir president Elsa Field, a second year biology student at Magdalen. “It’s a mash-up of famous Evensong tunes with funk and jazz, so it’s an interesting piece. It was written by one of our members, Jacob Swindells, who is a choral scholar at Merton and this year’s musical director.

“We’re also doing an arrangement of Top Cats from the 1960s TV show, which is a fun number.”

The choir will have just eight minutes to prove their worth in front of a judging panel that includes Royal Wedding composer Paul Mealor, choir director Joy Hill and music coach Stephen Connolly.

They will be up against 15 other choirs, but after making it to the final in the same competition two years ago, they are confident they can make a similar impact this time.

“We’ve got a history of doing pretty well in the competition, which we’d love to be able to keep up,” Elsa says. “We agreed unanimously that we’d love to be involved in this competition because it’s all about gaining musical recognition as a choir.

“Something we’ve worked on really hard this year is our musicality, and we’d love to gain recognition in the competition because of that.”

The choir was formed in 1998 by Divya Seshamani and Hannah Harper, and since then has appeared regularly around Oxford and at the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as touring extensively all over the UK.

Last year they undertook their first Asian tour, to Hong Kong and Macau, and will be returning there next year.

They are no strangers to competing, having taking part in a cappella competitions all over the UK and overseas. They also have several recordings under their belts.

Repertoire is usually, but not exclusively, jazz-based. “We do quite a mix,” says Elsa, “and it varies from year to year, depending on the taste of the musical director.

“We mainly stay within the jazz remit, but we do the odd Gospel number and every year we have a cheeky Disney number in our set. So mainly jazz but with a few other influences as well. It’s really good fun running a group with people get on well with and have so many things in common with. It really is fabulous, and we have a great time.”

After the Choir of the Year semi-finals, the group will be focusing on their Christmas concert, Lashing Through the Snow, which is at Magdalen College MCR from November 27–29, and is a festive mix of cocktails and jazz numbers.

Meanwhile, the 14-strong ensemble is keeping its fingers firmly crossed for lashings of good luck on October 19.

The Oxford Gargoyles — Choir of the Year competition
Royal Festival Hall, London
Sunday, 2pm-6pm
For tickets, visit southbankcentre.co.uk
Visit theoxfordgargoyles.com for more details