Composer Nico Muhly and artist Es Devlin join forces for 360 Vessels, a choral installation created as part of the Schwarzman Centre’s Open House festival day, on Saturday April 25 2026 at 8.30pm.
Beneath the Great Hall’s glass dome, 360 hand-made clay vessels will form a circular landscape amidst the audience as Schola Cantorum of Oxford, the University Chamber Choir, conducted by Stephen Grahl, perform a specially commissioned choral work by American composer Nico Muhly.
The texts within Muhly’s new choral work, Things Unknown, are drawn from the Dominican roots on which the study of humanities at Oxford University is founded, as well as the words of Thomas Traherne, 17th century theologian and poet who graduated from Brasenose College in April 1652.
In the lead up to the event, the vessels have been shaped in a series of workshops developed by Es Devlin in collaboration with the Institute for Ethics in AI as part of her Bloomberg-Oxford Fellowship.
"An empty book is like an infant's soul, in which anything may be written. It is capable of all things, but containeth nothing. I have a mind to fill this with profitable wonders."
– Thomas Traherne
360 Vessels is part of Open House, a free festival day of performances and events at the Schwarzman Centre.
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