State-of-the-art music hub opens at St Peter’s College
St Peter’s College is pleased to announce the opening of a state-of-the-art music hub for students and the wider community.
This summer, St Peter’s College, University of Oxford, celebrated the opening of its newly refurbished Music Room, with its accompanying newly created practice rooms and green room in the Pastry School. This will serve as a hub for musical excellence and enjoyment for the College community for many years to come.
The project initially emerged as part of our project to render our estate more accessible. A commitment to make our previously inaccessible Music Room on the first floor of the Pastry School fully accessible for wheelchair users then grew into a project to transform the acoustics and aesthetics of the Music Room to make it properly equipped to support the excellent music-making of the College.
The Pastry School (so called since it was where pupils from the Central Girls’ School used to be taught domestic science) has now been transformed into a beautiful, new and fully accessible, rehearsal and performance space.
See inside the new Music Room
A centre to nurture musical excellence
Until 2025, the ground floor of the Pastry School also housed the Middle Common Room (MCR). Once the advantageous opportunity came up to relocate the MCR to a larger and more suitable space in Thomas Hull House just across the quad, the entire Pastry School Building could then be absorbed into the Music Room project.
As a result, the College now boasts a building dedicated entirely to music and culture, including:
- The Music Room: a rehearsal and performance space seating up to 70 people, with state-of-the-art acoustics, live-broadcast and recording equipment and a new Model B Steinway piano;
- Two dedicated music practice rooms: the Haarjeev Singh Kandhari Practice Room and the Meirion Lewis Practice Room;
- The Olivia Choi Room: a beautiful green room also used as a meeting space for members of College and alumni;
- And – crucially – an elevated walkway connecting the first floor of the Pastry School to the Perrodo Building, enabling easy access to the Music Room via a lift.
St Peter’s College is grateful for the generous gifts received from many alumni and friends of the College. Without the wider community’s shared vision, investment and enthusiastic encouragement, this ambitious project could not have been realised. As a result of the generous spirit of the St Peter’s community, the College now has facilities to support our music-making that are commensurate in quality to our excellent music-making.
With the space now open, the College looks forward to inviting students, staff, alumni, friends and local community members to join us for musical and spoken-word events. Keep an eye on our events calendar here to learn more about upcoming recitals and other events in the 2026-2027 academic year.
Image gallery
Explore the new space in the photo gallery below.
