The Sixteen's Blog

Heffers Sound, Cambridge

Our British Library CD was released worldwide today.  I spotted our window display in Cambridge this evening.  It’s a great compilation with tracks by The Sixteen and The Hilliard Ensemble.  If you are not near Heffers Sound, copies are available here.

Wells Cathedral

Wells Cathedral is one of the favourite stops on our Choral Pilgrimage (next visit: Friday 28 September). It is, of course, one of the most magnificent Gothic cathedrals in England.  Anyone near Cambridge in the coming weeks might be interested in a brilliant lecture series: Charting the Rise and Decline of the Gothic Cathedral.  Full details are here on the University website, but the lectures will be a comprehensive exploration into Gothic cathedrals and their place in medieval society.

The 8 part lecture series is hosted by Professor Paul Crossley, Emeritus Professor at the Courtauld Institute of Art, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Foreign Fellow of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. Paul Crossley was educated at Downside School and Trinity College Cambridge. It was at Trinity College and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow where he completed his doctorate on the history of Polish Medieval architecture. From 1971 to 1990 he was a lecturer in the History of Art at Manchester University. In 1990 he joined the teaching staff of The Courtauld Institute, first as a Senior Lecturer and then as a Professor in 2002.

The lectures will take place weekly at 5:00 pm on Mondays during the Full Term in Lecture Room A of the Arts’ School, Bene’t Street, Cambridge, starting on 23 January 2012.

23 January: Dark Gothic

30 January: Architecture as Spolia: Suger and St-Denis

6 February: An Architecture of Reason?

13 February: Ductus and Memoria at Chartres Cathedral

20 February: From Judgement to Atonement: Sculpture at Strasbourg, Lincoln and Naumburg

27 February: Stained Glass: From narrative to moral meaning

5 March: Royalty and the Cathedral

12 March: Cathedrals and their Cities

I hope some of our fans in Cambridge get a chance to attend some of these free lectures.

Emily and Darius

Today marks the start of a rather manic period of touring (after Durham tonight we have concerts on consecutive nights in Edinburgh, Leeds, Zamora, Salamanca, Soria, Valladolid, Palencia and Leon).  On the train up to the North East this morning the choir were in the same carriage as Millwall FC, themselves en route to Middlesborough for a match tomorrow.  You can see our Concert and Tours Manager Emily Crewe with the star Millwall player, Darius Henderson!  This tour is entirely of works by Victoria. I was lucky to be invited to the Embassy of Spain for their National Day reception on Wednesday, and the Ambassador is clearly very impressed with the major contribution to people’s knowledge of Spain’s heritage we are making this year, by enabling so many people to hear Victoria’s music live.

Today’s travel arrangements mean that several members of The Sixteen (those who are also members of the Univeristy Senate) are not able to vote in the election for the next Chancellor of Cambridge University.  An election hasn’t been necessary since the early 19th century, so I guess the process has had to be re-invented (I was disppointed that the rules for the Single Transferable Vote were not in Latin): but (and it could only happen in Cambridge, in the 21st century) you can only cast your vote in person (be-gowned, of course). Anyway, it is a beautiful day here in Cambridge, and the queue was long but friendly – democracy being seen to be done. I look forward to catching the choir up tomorrow in Edinburgh, where we have a pre-concert reception in Blackwells, our CD retail partners, to celebrate CORO’s 10th anniversary and the release of our brilliant new James MacMillan recording.

Quilt by Nancy Feve

To Cambridge Arts Network this evening, and then to an opening at Williams Art in Gwydir Street. Connection with The Sixteen? Well, it is amazing where you find Sixteen fans who want to know how to get our CDs. But it is also fascinating to find more potential entries to our photo competition. US artist Nancy Feve’s quilts are vibrant, colourful, and often based on the number 16. If you are in Cambridge this week, take a look.

Quilt by Nancy Feve