The Sixteen's Blog

Winchester Cathedral

The Sixteen’s 2012 Choral Pilgrimage starts this evening in Winchester Cathedral, in a programme entitled The Earth Resounds.

Harry has written: ‘I have decided to explore the quite amazing sacred music emanating from Flanders in the 15th and 16th centuries.  This extraordinary music spans 100 years of innovation and brilliance.  Josquin Desprez, Antoine Brumel and Orlande de Lassus were truly European composers, leaving their origins to work in the top establishments of Aix-en-Provence, Ferrara, Rome and Munich. Their music has a unique sonority which I believe will astound you’.

Here are Julie Cooper and Harry talking about the start of the tour during rehearsals yesterday.

Tonight at 7pm London-time (GMT+1), you can join Harry Christophers via Facebook for the first Sixteen Social: a chance to ask him questions about The Sixteen, our history and our future plans.

All is explained here.

This is the week the 2012 Choral Pilgrimage starts: The Earth Resounds, with music by Josquin, Brumel and Lassus.

We are in Winchester Cathedral on Friday evening and St Albans Cathedral on Saturday: there are some tickets still available.  Contact the National Centre for Early Music for details.

At least one of the CDs we make for our own label each year is funded by generous individual donors.  The second volume of our Palestrina mass series (due for release in September) is the next recording to be funded this way and, to broaden the pool of people involving themselves directly with our projects, we are raising some of the costs through the BigGive.  Whether you would like to contribute £10, £100 or £1000, this is a very easy way to do so!  This link will take you to a full project description on the BigGive site.

Everyone making a donation will be credited in the CD booklet; and anybody donating at least £20 will receive a copy of the CD when it is released.

More information on Volume 1 is available here – and there will be at least another 10 volumes to follow!

Handel rehearsal in Wellington

Wellington Town Hall was the scene of Thursday’s Handel concert on our Asia-Pacific tour: you can see Harry rehearsing the choir and orchestra in ‘Dixit Dominus’.  Tonight is the last concert on the tour: the choir perform the Immortal Legacy programme in the same venue.  Details are here.  The concert is being recorded by Radio New Zealand. You can hear the same station’s review of the Handel concert here, at about 6:12 – they loved it (especially the sopranos!).

I gather it is pretty stormy on the North Island, with major power-cuts; I hope tonight’s concert is not affected.

The China office has reached Chengdu, where I have just received the following despatch from David Clegg in Wellington (photos to follow):

‘Greetings from Wellington. We’re about to do our last Handel concert of the tour in the beautiful Town Hall. If the children at our workshop today are anything to go by then we should have a very enthusiastic audience. Simon Berridge led Kirsty Hopkins, Tim Jones and myself in a fun morning’s work with two local schools where we took them through some Tallis, Bruckner and Tavener. They were delightful to work with, and very responsive. A real credit to their teachers. As the tour comes to a close we are beginning to look back on the last week and a half, and take stock of a most brilliant tour. I think it has inspired the ever-youthful Harry to look for future opportunities in these fascinating parts of the world. For me it has been a real opportunity to revisit countries I last came to 20 years ago with The National Youth Choir of Great Britain. I’ve met up with old friends in both Sydney and Melbourne and loved seeing how the places have developed over the years. The orchestra fly home tomorrow while the choir have a well-deserved day off. Weather not so great today, so we’re hoping for some sun tomorrow (although my sunburn from Sydney has only just begun to die down, much to the amusement of my colleagues). We’re all booked in for a meal at a recommended restaurant tomorrow night for copious amounts of New Zealand lamb. But first, tonight’s concert….’