Over the weekend March 27 and 28, Merton College presents its first Passiontide at Merton festival. The college choir, established in its current form by Peter Phillips and Benjamin Nicholas in 2008, is featured throughout, singing the services (Evensong on Saturday and Sung Eucharist on Sunday) and bringing the weekend to a close with a performance of Bach’s St John Passion (Sunday, 5pm).

A star line-up of soloists for this dramatic and vivid work include Daniel Norman as Evangelist, Giles Underwood as Christus and Carys Lane, soprano. Oxford’s early-music ensemble, Charivari Agréable appear with the college choir for the first time.

This year sees the 300th anniversary of Pergolesi’s birth, and his ever-popular Stabat Mater (Saturday, 2pm) is brought by the boy trebles from Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum. Bach’s cantata Ich habe genug completes the concert and features the ex-New College bass, Christopher Borrett.

Also visiting on the Saturday are the Marian Consort, and their concert of Gesualdo’s sacred choral music promises to be a highlight. Miserere and Responsories for Holy Saturday (Saturday, 9pm) will sound breathtakingly beautiful in the famous acoustic of Merton Chapel.

The vast corpus of church music written for Lent and Passiontide is represented in the sung services: motets by Thomas Tallis, Gibbons and Jonathan Harvey, Frank Martin’s Mass, and canticles by Kenneth Leighton and Pawel Lakaszewski. This promises to be an essential way to start your journey to Easter.

Tickets for individual events can be booked from the Oxford Playhouse box office, but why not take a ‘Festival Ticket’ and stay at Merton for the weekend?

Tickets from The Oxford Playhouse, tel: 01865 305305 (www.oxfordplayhouse.com/ ticketsoxford); Festival Tickets from Caroline Massey, tel: 01865 276327 or email: caroline.massey@admin.

merton.ox.ac.uk.