Oxford Contemporary Music is an independent promoter, producer and commissioner of events across Oxfordshire and beyond. The organization promotes over thirty live music events every year spanning a wide range of genres from jazz to classical to electronica to world music and more. Alongside OCM’s regular concert programme in Oxford, the organisation commissions and produces new work. Past commissions and projects include Power Plant, (which went on to become an international hit with Producer Simon Chatterton), award winning sound artist Robert Jarvis’s Echolocation (a sound installation for a choir of bats), and Music from the Genome (the world premiere of Michael Zev Gordon’s award winning ‘Allele’ based on cutting edge research into the human genome, performed at the UK’s national synchrotron facility Diamond Light Source). Ray Lee’s Ethometric Museum was premiered at Oxford’s Museum of the History of Science and has since been performed across the UK and Europe. Ray Lee won a 2012 British Composer Award in Sonic Art for Ethometric Museum. OCM’s contribution to the Cultural Olympiad was Mira Calix’s Nothing Is Set In Stone, which was premiered at Fairlop Waters in June 2012 and was part of Secrets, presented by the Mayor of London and London 2012 Festival. For summer 2013 OCM co-commissioned Audible Forces with Brighton Festival and toured to six festivals within the UK. OCM has an education and outreach programme, making music accessible across many communities in Oxfordshire. Recent work includes Airborne, in partnership with IOU, and a concert series at the Warneford Hospital chapel in partnership with Artscape and OBMH Spiritual and Pastoral Care Team.
‘OCM Downloads’ was launched in spring 2010 to release the live recordings of OCM’s events. The catalogue includes exclusive performances available only from OCM Downloads. Artists include Coco Mbassi, Robert Jarvis, Harold Budd, The Singing Bones and Whitty/Newland/Lash. For more details about OCM, the current season, OCM Downloads and how you can support OCM visit www.ocmevents.org. OCM is supported by Arts Council England, Oxford Brookes University, the PRS Foundation and Oxford City Council.
