St James’s Chamber Orchestra

St James’s Chamber Orchestra exists to share the transformative power of music as a force for harmony, peace, and the easing of human suffering. Our purpose is to advance musical excellence and education while recognising music’s unique capacity to heal, unite, and inspire. This wider mission grows naturally from within: a community founded on mutual respect, generosity, and shared responsibility, where every player contributes both their artistry and their spirit of co-operation.

We are committed to fostering the next generation of musicians by providing a platform for early-career artists, offering them opportunities to perform both as orchestral players and as soloists. We also commission new works, expanding the repertoire and ensuring that the Orchestra remains a living, creative force as well as a guardian of tradition.

The Orchestra’s links with Ukraine through our association with the Ukrainian Welcome Centre and our many Ukrainian players give the Orchestra a particular focus. The Orchestra has committed 1,000 volunteer hours in each of its 2025–26 and 2026–27 seasons (in addition to its rehearsal and performance activities) to raise funds for Ukrainian children harmed by war, supporting trauma counselling and prosthetic care.

To advance this initiative the Orchestra is actively seekingsupport both under the Corporate Social Responsibility policies of UK corporates, including those profiting from the hostilities in Ukraine, and from charitable foundations supporting music and the arts, as well as from individual friends and supporters of the Orchestra through voluntary contributions which accord significant tax savings to higher rate taxpayers through the Gift Aid scheme.

These initiatives will benefit War Child, the British Red Cross, and other humanitarian partners, as well as the Orchestral Music Society, our own charity, which enables the Orchestra to sustain its unique mission.

In dedicating our Bach Cycle of Concerts to this cause, we draw strength from the spiritual values embodied in Bach’s music: its humanity, its compassion, and its timeless affirmation of hope in the face of suffering. We hope that those UK corporates and foundations who support this initiative will also wish to attend the concerts in our Bach Cycle and experience for themselves the emotional heft and transformative power of music.

For many of our players, displaced nationals of a country and culture under attack and in the process of being destroyed, this music carries an especially poignant meaning, and for all of us it is an expression of solidarity as well as a call for support for those who have been most badly affected - the children of Ukraine. In this way the emotion expressed is directed towards ending pain and easing human suffering.

These values speak as urgently today, in Ukraine and beyond, as they did when the music was first written.