Orchestra of St John’s

About Orchestra of St John’s

The Orchestra of St John’s was founded by John Lubbock in 1967 while still a student at the Royal Academy of Music. It owes its name to its association with St John’s Smith Square, Westminster, which was its home for many years.

Some fifty years on, the OSJ remains a busy and vibrant orchestra, and John Lubbock remains its conductor and musical director. Over the years, John has gathered around him a group of distinguished players and collaborators who are not only outstanding musicians but who also share his passion for bringing music to people of all ages and from all walks of life.

“For me and everyone else at OSJ, the music comes first: beautiful music created by a group of outstanding musicians who bring their palpable joy at playing together to every performance. It’s wonderful that, after more than half a century, we continue to present a busy year-round programme of concerts and we continue to commission new work and to explore new musical horizons. —John Lubbock, OSJ’s founder and Artistic Director.

“Music has an extraordinary power and an extraordinary reach. It can cross boundaries of comprehension, ability, race, gender, age and beyond. It can make inroads where words can’t and build bridges where none seemed possible. And we see this over and over again, particularly in the work that we do as part of our Connections programme.

“A corner-stone of this programme is our Music for Autism work, which we have been doing for over twenty years. We spend more than sixty days a year playing to children and young people in special educational needs schools around Oxford and nationally.” —John Lubbock, OSJ’s founder and Artistic Director.