Wednesday 14 August 2013

On the Road Again - the Sixteen's 2013/14 programme

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The Sixteen
Under their conductor Harry Christophers, the Sixteen are presenting a 2013/14 which includes some serious Tudor polyphony on their annual Choral Pilgrimage and elsewhere. Naturally there will be celebrations for Britten's centenary. Handel's Jephtha makes an appearance with the promise of a recording to come next year.

The Sixteen's Choral Pilgrimage 2014 presents a programme of early Tudor polyphony with music by John Sheppard, Richard Davy and William Mundy including Mundy's glorious Vox Patris Coelestis and Sheppard's Gaude, gaude Maria. The tour starts in Paris 13 Feb 2013 and continues to Cambridge, Oxford, Croydon, Greenwich, Exeter, Truro, Llandaff, Ealing, Rochester, Peterborough and York with further dates in Autumn 2014, giving you the chance to hear some amazing large-scale (Vox Patris Coelestis is BIG) in the sort of acoustic for which it was intended.

Their programme An Immortal Legacy, which mixes Tudor music by Tallis, Byrd and their contemporaries with music by Britten, Tippett and MacMillan continues to be popular and they are performing it in St Andrews (6/10/2013), Birmingham (16/10/2013) and London's Cadogan Hall (10/4/2014).

Like many other groups, the Sixteen is marking Britten's centenary, with a concert in Manchester featuring Britten's Hymn to St. Cecilia, Hymn to St. Columba, Hymn to the Virgin, Hymn to St. Peter, A Ceremony of Carols alongside music by Purcell  (15/11/2013) and a concert on Britten's 100th birthday at the Union Chapel, London which includes a substantial amount of the composer's choral music including Sacred and Profane.

Britten's Ceremony of Carols also crops up on the group's Christmas programme, alongside music by Poulenc and medieval carols, with performances in Oxford (7/12), Reading (8/12), London's South Bank (11/12), York (12/12), Cardiff (13/12), Taunton (14/12), Edinburgh (15/12) and Christ Church Spitalfields (17/12)

James Gilchrist, who made a strong impression in the title role of Handel's Jephtha at the Buxton Festival last year (see my review), returns to the role in a series of performances with the Sixteen alongside Susan Bickley, Sophie Bevan and Robin Blaze. Concerts take place at Bath Abbey (9/11/2013) and the Barbican Centre (14/1/2014) and the oratorio will be recorded for issue on the Coro label in 2014.

Other concerts include a programme of large scale Tudor music with Carver's O Bone Jesu and Tallis's Spem in Alium at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh (21/8/2013),  more Tudor music at Temple Church (11/11/2013), Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers in Manchester (7/3/2014), and Handel's Coronation Anthems at the Lufthanse Festival of Baroque Music (16/5/2014)

Further information from the Sixteen's website.

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