Jack Oades

Jack is an award-winning composer from Exeter, UK, with a specialty in choral music. His works have been described as ‘nothing short of sensational … arguably unparalleled in terms of beauty and the stark emotion it draws from both singers and listeners.’ Alongside his prolific choral and organ writing, he has also written chamber, orchestral, and solo works, including two works for symphony orchestra and chorus. More recently, he has branched out into digital and ambient music, including scores and sound design for film and video games.

Born in 1994, Jack began learning the piano and the violin from an early age, and subsequently the organ aged 16. Jack’s first experience of choral composition was when he wrote a Christmas carol for his school choir in 2010. Inspired by this experience, he continued to compose at the University of Cambridge, where he read Music at Pembroke College, studying composition with Mark Gotham, Christopher Brown, and Jeremy Thurlow. He was the Organ Scholar of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, where he directed and accompanied the chapel choir. After graduating in 2015, he held organist positions in the Isle of Man, London, and Dublin, and he regularly wrote for the choirs in each establishment. In 2019, he was appointed as Organist and Assistant Director of Music at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, following a term as Acting Director of Music, and he gained his Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists. In 2022, he decided to pursue a full-time career in composition and gained a Tenor Lay Vicarship with the choir of Exeter Cathedral. Alongside his composition and choral music, he enjoys a busy freelance career as a sound designer, DJ, jazz musician and performer.

Jack’s compositional ability has been recognised through a number of successes in composition competitions. He was the winner of the Charles Wood 150th Anniversary Prize in 2016 and the Buckfast Abbey Millenium Prize in 2018. He has also been a finalist in several other competitions, including the Pallant Charitable Trust Prize (2014), the Orgelbüchlein Project Competition (2017), and the International Film Music Contest (2023). His works have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and performed all over the world, with highlights including the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, and Westminster Abbey.

Commissions have been increasingly frequent in recent years, with projects ranging from short choral anthems to full-scale orchestral works. A breakthrough came in 2019, when Jack was asked to write a setting of the Te Deum for chorus and orchestra, celebrating the re-opening of Fairfield Halls in south London. Another major project was a commission for the prestigious JAM on the Marsh Festival in 2021, writing a 30-minute piece for choir, organ, and brass. He was featured as part of the Choir & Organ Magazine’s ‘New Music’ series in 2022 and has had further commissions from the RSCM, the Whitgift Foundation, and a variety of choirs and ensembles.

Jack is a keen surfer and is absolutely obsessed with cult British comedy shows.