The Sixteen's Blog

Eglise abbatiale de Lessay

Great Choral Pilgrimage concert last Friday, the final evening concert in this year’s York Early Music Festival. A packed Minster, but no national critics to notice the size of audience and their response – I suppose the entire music media corps was at the first night of this year’s BBC Proms.

I stayed in York for Saturday’s YEMF Young Artists competition.  Listening to ten very different ensembles in one day is exhausting but inspiring, and it certainly helps expand your repertoire knowledge: Michel Blavet (1700-68), Francesco Rognoni (d ?1626), Paolo Antonio del Bivi (1508-84), Lambert de Sayve (1548/9-1614), and David Pohle (1624-95) were all new to me.  The groups which particularly impressed me and which will be worth looking out for in the coming years were Profeti della Quinta (the eventual and deserved winners), Encantar, L’Istante, Les Ombres and Den Haag Piano Quintet.

BBC Four transmitted an intriguing documentary about Sir Peter Maxwell Davies the other night (it is still available on the BBC  iPlayer). As with our Sacred Music series, BBC Four allows the time for an in-depth portrait, with some fantastic music extracts, including a touching performance by the composer of his piano piece Farewell to Stromness.  Unfortunately The Sixteen’s recording of Max’s O Magnum Mysterium is not currently available on CORO, but watch this space!

As I write, the choir is on the Portsmouth to Cherbourg ferry en route to Lessay in Normandy, for a concert tomorrow night in Les Heures Musicales de l’Abbaye de Lessay.  Harry is still in mid-run of performances of Handel’s Saul in the Buxton Festival, so our assistant conductor Eamonn Dougan will direct a programme of Byrd, Tallis and Sheppard.  The concert is being recorded for future broadcast by France Musique, so I’ll put up a link in due course.

The ceiling of York Minster tower

We are off to York next week for what has become our annual visit to the York Early Music Festival.  This will be the last of our Choral Pilgrimage concerts before the summer break (they start again in September in which month we have 9!).  York is always one of our biggest audiences and the main part of the nave is sold out, but you can still get side aisle seats from the NCEM box-office.  The concert is on Friday 15 July and starts at 7.30pm.

For the next couple of weeks, ClassicsOnline is running a specially priced exclusive offer download sampler called Behind the Music.  It’s an interesting cross-section of our CORO output, and includes music from our Victoria CD produced this year to accompany the Choral Pilgrimage.  13 tracks for just £2.99.

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