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MCS was founded as a ‘song school’ in 1480, and music and the arts remain at the heart of school life. Pupils sing in Chapel four times a week, and every pupil sings on stage as part of our House Music competition. We also enjoy the opportunity to extend our musical reach beyond our gates.
Every year, we stage a major musical concert at the Sheldonian Theatre, Symphony Hall Birmingham, and other prestigious venues, often inviting pupils from our partner schools to perform alongside us. In 2025, around 500 primary-aged pupils joined us for a joyous performance of Ahoy! at the Oxford Town Hall. We also work with local choirs as part of Sing Oxford www.singoxford.org, giving the Oxford community the chance to find a suitable choir, and providing opportunities for choirs to work together on projects and benefit from choral training workshops.
Our ambitious drama programme includes a yearly production at the Oxford Playhouse, showcasing a new piece of writing, and often involving local primary school children, such as in the premiere of Bob Chilcott’s Birdland in 2022. We stage annual Field productions, usually a Shakespeare play, and welcome audiences from outside the school.
The performing arts are a popular feature of our Sixth Form community volunteering, with a number of pupils spending an afternoon a week teaching younger children in partner schools to play musical instruments. Other Sixth Form pupils opt to work with partner schools to stage a play — in 2026, performing Marmaduke! alongside a cast of enthusiastic primary pupils.
Our thriving visual arts programme gives pupils the creative freedom to explore original creations in multiple different media, and our work with primary school children in the Bridge programme enables pupils to explore the arts fully as part of their enrichment.
We are proud to have founded the Oxford Festival of the Arts in 2009 and to have seen it grow from a small programme of school and community events into Oxford’s flagship festival, until its closure in 2026.
We continue to commission original pieces, working with composers such as Lin Marsh, whose work Children of the World will be performed in summer 2027, in partnership with the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire.
We will continue to update this page with information on MCS, Music and the Arts.
