Befalling

aeftersang ensemble bring Befalling to Keble College Chapel on Saturday 24 October, a choral concert built around themes of mental health. The programme draws on works by Wallen, Shaw and Barber, three composers from different eras and traditions brought together by that single thread. It's a choral set, so the voices are the whole thing, and the choice of composers gives a good sense of the ground they're covering: the contemporary voice of Wallen, the more recent Shaw, and the mid-century lyricism of Samuel Barber, whose Agnus Dei is one of the most enduring choral pieces of the last century.

The ensemble is a choral group, and Befalling is the title they've given this particular programme. The focus on mental health isn't just a loose theme; it's the thing the whole set turns on, and the combination of those three composers lets them approach it from a few different angles. It's a choral concert in the truest sense, with the voices doing all the heavy lifting.

Keble College Chapel is a fitting place for it. It's the chapel of Keble College, founded in 1870 in memory of John Keble, the Victorian clergyman who, with others in the Oxford Movement, worked to renew the Church of England in the Catholic tradition. It's open daily to everyone, and on Sunday evenings during Full Term it hosts Holy Communion at 5:30 pm. The Keble Choir sings there, and the chapel stages choral services alongside talks by public figures, so it's a space that knows its way around a choral programme.

The concert starts at 7:30 pm on Saturday 24 October, and entry is free. The chapel is on Parks Road, OX1 3PG, so it's easy enough to find if you're coming from the centre.