The Sixteen
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The Sixteen are a United Kingdom-based choir and period instrument orchestra; founded by
Harry Christophers Richard Henry Tudor "Harry" Christophers CBE FRSCM (born 26 December 1953) is an English conductor. Life and career Richard Henry Tudor Christophers was born in Goudhurst, Kent. He was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral under choirmaster Al ...
, they started as an unnamed group of sixteen friends in 1977, giving their first billed concert in 1979. The group performs early English polyphony, works of the Renaissance, Baroque and early Classical music, and a diversity of 20th-century music. The Sixteen are "The Voices of Classic FM", TV media partner with
Sky Arts Sky Arts (originally launched as Artsworld) is a British free-to-air television channel offering 24 hours a day of programmes dedicated to highbrow arts, including theatrical performances, movies, documentaries and music (such as opera perfor ...
and associate artists of the
Southbank Centre Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames (between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge). It comprises three main performance venues (the Royal Festival Hall including the Nat ...
in London and
Bridgewater Hall The Bridgewater Hall is a concert venue in Manchester city centre, England. It cost around £42 million to build in the 1990s, and hosts over 250 performances a year. It is home to the 165-year-old Hallé Orchestra as well as to the Hallé ...
in Manchester. The group promotes an annual series at the
Queen Elizabeth Hall The Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) is a music venue on the South Bank in London, England, that hosts classical, jazz, and avant-garde music, talks and dance performances. It was opened in 1967, with a concert conducted by Benjamin Britten. The ...
as well as the Choral Pilgrimage, a tour of Britain's finest cathedrals: bringing music back to the buildings for which it was written. The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
television series ''Sacred Music'' was produced in collaboration with The Sixteen; between 2008 and 2015, two full series aired, along with numerous specials.


Tours

The Sixteen tour throughout Europe, Japan, Australia and the Americas and have given regular performances at major concert halls and festivals worldwide, including the
Barbican Centre The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhi ...
in London, the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, the
Concertgebouw The Royal Concertgebouw ( nl, Koninklijk Concertgebouw, ) is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" translates into English as "concert building". Its superb acoustics place it among the finest concert halls i ...
in Amsterdam, the
Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architec ...
,
Tokyo Opera City is a skyscraper located in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Completed in 1996, it stands 234 metres (768 feet) high and has 54 floors. The tower is the third-tallest building in Shinjuku, Tokyo and seventh-tallest in Tokyo. The closest train stat ...
and the
Vienna Musikverein The ( or ; ), commonly shortened to , is a concert hall in Vienna, Austria, which is located in the Innere Stadt district. The building opened in 1870 and is the home of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra. The acoustics of the building's 'Gre ...
. They have also performed at the
BBC Proms The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hal ...
and the festivals of Granada, Lucerne, Istanbul, Prague and Salzburg. In addition, the Sixteen's period orchestra have taken part in semi-staged performances of
Purcell Henry Purcell (, rare: September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer. Purcell's style of Baroque music was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest Eng ...
's ''
Fairy Queen In folklore and literature, the Fairy Queen or Queen of the Fairies is a female ruler of the fairies, sometimes but not always paired with a king. Depending on the work, she may be named or unnamed; Titania and Mab are two frequently used name ...
'' in Tel Aviv and London, a fully staged production of Purcell's ''
King Arthur King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a ...
'' in Lisbon's Centro Cultural de Belém , followed by new productions of
Claudio Monteverdi Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered ...
's''
Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria ''Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria'' (Stattkus-Verzeichnis, SV 325, ''The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland'') is an List of operas by Claudio Monteverdi, opera consisting of a prologue and five acts (later revised to three), set by Claudio Montever ...
'' at Lisbon Opera House and '' The Coronation of Poppea'' at the
English National Opera English National Opera (ENO) is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera. ENO's productions are sung in English ...
.


Education

The Sixteen have an education programme and recent projects include a series of school matinées for hundreds of primary school children in
Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...
, Liverpool and Southwell under the national Sing Up initiative. The Sixteen also have close ties with the
Guildhall School of Music and Drama The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a conservatoire and drama school located in the City of London, United Kingdom. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz ...
and
Trinity College of Music Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance is a music and dance conservatoire based in London, England. It was formed in 2005 as a merger of two older institutions – Trinity College of Music and Laban Dance Centre. The conservatoire has ...
, offering opportunities for young people about to embark on careers as professional musicians.


Discography

Over 90 recordings reflect the Sixteen's range of work, spanning the music of 500 years and winning many awards including the ''Grand Prix du Disque'', numerous ''Schallplattenkritik'', a
Gramophone Award The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and refer ...
(Early Music, 1992), the Classical Brit Award in 2005 for Renaissance and IKON, which was nominated for a Grammy Award and two Classical Brits. These latter two discs were recorded as part of the group's contract with Universal Classics and Jazz. Since 2001, the Sixteen have had their own record label, CORO, which has released over 90 titles to date. Recent recordings include Handel's oratorio ''Messiah'', with soloists
Carolyn Sampson Carolyn Sampson (born 18 May 1974) is an English soprano in opera and concert. Specialising in historically informed performance, she has sung in Masaaki Suzuki's recording project of Bach cantatas and has appeared at the English National Opera. ...
, Catherine Wyn-Rogers,
Mark Padmore Mark Padmore (born 8 March 1961) is a British tenor appearing in concerts, recitals, and opera. He was born in London on 8 March 1961, and raised in Canterbury, Kent, England. Padmore studied clarinet and piano prior to his gaining a choral ...
and
Christopher Purves Christopher Purves (born in Cambridge) is an English bass-baritone.''Opera'' (2009), vol. 60, p. 516, "Christopher Purves. Erica Jeal. Purves sings his first Falstaff at Glyndebourne this month Before I get to talk with ... Home was Cambridge, wh ...
(winner of a
MIDEM Midem is the acronym for Marché International du Disque et de l'Édition Musicale, which is organised annually in and around the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France. The trade show, organized by Reed MIDEM, a subsidiary of Re ...
Classical Award 2009), ''Dixit Dominus'' featuring
Handel George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training i ...
's eponymous early work and Steffani's Stabat Mater, ''Ceremony and Devotion: Music for the Tudors'', which accompanied the 2010 Choral Pilgrimage and ''Hail, Mother of the Redeemer'', which accompanied the 2011 Choral Pilgrimage.


See also

* The Clerks *
Hilliard Ensemble The Hilliard Ensemble was a British male vocal quartet originally devoted to the performance of early music. The group was named after the Elizabethan miniaturist painter Nicholas Hilliard. Founded in 1974, the group disbanded in 2014. Although ...
*
I Fagiolini I Fagiolini is a British vocal ensemble specialising in early music and contemporary music. Founded by Robert Hollingworth at Oxford in 1986, the group won the UK Early Music Network’s Young Artists’ Competition in 1988 and a Royal Philharmon ...
*
Tallis Scholars The Tallis Scholars is a British professional early music vocal ensemble normally consisting of two singers per part, with a core group of ten singers. They specialise in performing ''a cappella'' sacred vocal music. History The group was formed ...
*
Handel and Haydn Society The Handel and Haydn Society is an American chorus and period instrument orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. Known colloquially as 'H+H', the organization has been in continual performance since its founding in 1815, the longest-serving suc ...


References


External links


Official websiteThe Voices of Classic FMHarry Christophers interview with Paris Konstantinidis
(2007) {{DEFAULTSORT:Sixteen, The Early music choirs English choirs British early music ensembles Musical groups established in 1979