We can now confirm the date for this year’s Misa Campesina. It will be performed on

Sunday 29 March 11.30 am at Blackfriars (St. Giles),

Anybody who wants to join the choir or the very small orchestra is welcome! Please email Jenny Houston at jen_houston AT hotmail DOT com or 077 51 626 006.

There will be two rehearsals on the two Saturdays before the event, namely:

Saturday 21.3. 10:30-12:30, at the Quaker Meeting House, also in St. Giles

Saturday 28.3. 10:30-12:30 in the Aula at Blackfriars.

There will also be a short rehearsal to warm up just before the Misa from 10.30. The mass will be followed by a reception/refreshments in the Aula from 12.30 – 1.30.

The Mass, written in 1975 by by Carlos Mejía Godoy, incorporating a liberation theology and Nicaraguan folk music, will be sung in Spanish (but language proficiency is not needed). It has been sung annually in Oxford for many years (more than 30? we need a historian to investigate this!) in celebration of the link with Leon. It has has been praised for its ‘passionate lyrics and complex rhythms reflecting the richness of the Nicaraguan folk traditions’.

This was the warm-up before the Misa two years ago, when we had two musicians visiting from Nicaragua, Franklin and Luis.