The Sixteen's Blog

James MacMillan: Miserere

There was an interesting, in-depth discussion on BBC Radio 3′s CD Review on Saturday morning, when Andrew McGregor and Jeremy Summerley surveyed recent choral recordings of contemporary repertoire.  It’s about 105 minutes into the programme.  They cover music by Peteris Vasks, Ola Gjeilo, Wolfgang Rihm, a remarkable CD by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain (Augustinas, Urbatis, Plakidis, Grigorjeva, and Gabriel Jackson), and our recent CORO release of works by James MacMillan: Miserere (if you haven’t heard this yet, it is available here).

Talking of CORO, there has been a very encouraging response over the weekend to our Big Give campaign to involve fans of The Sixteen in supporting the second volume of our series of Palestrina Masses.  To find out more or to make a donation, visit The Big Give.

We have a pretty good track record of getting our CDs on airline entertainment systems, not least in Asia.  Singapore Airlines has been featuring Ceremony and Devotion: Music for the Tudors (currently available on special offer on our website) ever since it was released two years ago.

So, knowing that we now have many more fans in Asia-Pacific following our recent tour, and knowing how many of them fly on Cathay Pacific, we were delighted to see that James Jolly features our recording of James MacMillan’s Miserere on his March Classical Choice channel on Cathay Pacific. If you are on a flight in the next few weeks, do listen: it’s an amazing piece.  Details are on page 96 of the March Discovery magazine.

If you are not flying on Cathay Pacific this month further details of the recording are here.

Harry in the Handel House, London

Harry will take the Boston-based Handel and Haydn Society through their bicentennial celebrations in 2015, it has been announced.  You can read the story in Gramophone News.  CORO has embarked on an exciting series of recordings with the Handel and Haydn Society, the most recent release being Mozart’s Requiem.

Last night’s Radio 3 broadcast of our Three Choirs Festival concert is available on iPlayer for another six days. It’s a great programme, with music by Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, John Tavener, Petr Eben, Arvo Pärt, John Tavener, Bruckner, Chesnokov, James MacMillan, Kalinnikov, Holst.

The first time I met Petr Eben was in a cold, misty park in pre-1989 Prague, to negotiate a commission contract for a solo organ work (not the piece in this concert!), well away from the eyes and ears of the State Concert Agency, Pragokoncert, and the Composers’ Union….very John Le Carré.

Krakow has been one of my favourite European cities for the last six years, having been involved in setting up a concert series there for Arts Council England, and making around 20 visits.  I’ve always been aware that the Wawel Castle and Cathedral must have been the base for many composers during the long period when Krakow was the royal capital.  A few days research (well, research implies musicology in which I have no expertise, more rooting around collecting information) in the music libraries of Warsaw and Cambridge Universities has led me to believe this was the case and that there is some interesting seventeenth and eighteenth century repertoire to explore.  So it was fascinating to go to the Lufthansa Baroque Festival’s Saturday afternoon concert to hear works by Zielenski, Jarzebski, Gorczycki, and Szarzynski performed by the Retrospect Ensemble (our sopranos Julie and Ildiko in fine solo form!).  Watch out for The Sixteen’s ventures into Polish repertoire from this era in the coming years, a project on which our assistant conductor Eamonn Dougan is taking the lead.

Eamonn Dougan outside Ardingly College Chapel

  Harry was conducting in Granada so Eamonn directed our Immortal Legacy programme in a concert at Ardingly College: with music by Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Morley, Britten, Tippett and MacMillan, this is one of our most popular ‘mixed’ programmes.  Harry was back from Spain in time to conduct the same programme in St David’s Hall in Cardiff on Tuesday.  We look forward to returning to Wales for a concert on our Choral Pilgrimage in Swansea on 16 September.

Half the sopranos in Cardiff

Elin Manahan Thomas, Grace Davidson and Simon Berridge

We have just finished sessions in St Silas Church in Kentish Town for our next CD of Monteverdi.  Volume 1 of Selva morale e spirituale (our CD of the week) was released recently, with two more volumes to follow.

Montverdi revolutionised the music of the theatre and the church by his dramatic and imaginative use of voices and instruments and by his daring harmonies and rhythms. Next to his Vespers of 1610, the Selva morale e spirituale of 1641 is his most significant and virtuosic collection of sacred music.

A team of eight singers were joined by our ace string and continuo players.  It’s too early to announce the release date, but we have other releases before then to highlight anyway!

Congratulations to one of our Development Board members Chris Blackhurst, who has just won the Business Journalist of the Year Award from the London Press Club.  Chris is City Editor of the London Evening Standard, but always manages to find space also to cover – trenchantly – the interface between business, the wealthy and the arts (and other third sector activity).

We are off to Croydon tonight for the next Choral Pilgrimage Victoria concert, supported by the Office for Cultural and Scientific Affairs, Embassy of Spain, followed tomorrow by the Massive Messiah at the Royal Festival Hall. A busy week.

If you can’t be on the South Bank tomorrow evening, try and get to the last performance of James MacMillan’s Clemency at the Royal Opera House.  I saw it last night: brilliant, with writing for voices which reaffirms why he is one of The Sixteen’s favourite contemporary composers.

Recording session in St. Silas Church