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The Sixteen – An Immortal Legacy
Sunday 26th June 2022 at 8:00 pm

We are delighted to welcome back The Sixteen back to St George’s with An Immortal Legacy a distinctly British programme spanning over 500 years of choral music.

16th-century composers Tallis and Byrd wrote at times of religious turmoil and national upheaval, producing magnificent works of beauty and musical mastery. Their legacy can be traced to some of Britain’s most celebrated 20th and 21st century composers, including Britten, Tippett and Sir James MacMillan, whose works complete this enlightening programme.

Tallis                 Tunes for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter (1-4)

Tallis                 Salvator mundi

Morley             April is in my mistress’ face

Gibbons          The Silver Swan

Byrd                 This sweet and merry month of May

MacMillan     Sedebit Dominum Rex

Sheppard       In manus tuas III

Tippett            Five Spirituals from A Child of Our Time

Interval

Tallis                O nata lux

Tallis                O sacrum convivium

Tallis                Loquebantur variis linguis

MacMillan     Mitte manum tuam

Byrd                 Laudibus in sanctis

Britten            Gloriana Dances

Tallis               Tunes for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter (5-8)

Harry Christophers conductor

Please note that:-

  • While seating is zoned by price for this concert seats are not individually allocated
  • On-line ticket receipts will be exchanged for individual tickets on the door

Click this link to see the Seating Plan

Photos Courtesy of Simon Jay Price

Online ticket sales for this event are closed.

Online ticket sales for this event are closed.

Refreshments

There will be a licensed Cash Only bar or bars for this event under the auspices of a TEN licence from Bromley Council. Refreshments may be purchased during the interval only.

The usual alcohol licensing law applies.

Artist Information

The Sixteen

Whether performing a simple medieval hymn or expressing the complex musical and emotional language of a contemporary choral composition, The Sixteen does so with qualities common to all great ensembles. Tonal warmth, rhythmic precision and immaculate intonation are clearly essential to the mix. But it is the courage and intensity with which The Sixteen makes music that speak above all to so many people.

Celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2019 The Sixteen gave its first concert in 1979 under the direction of Founder and Conductor Harry Christophers CBE. Their pioneering work since has made a profound impact on the performance of choral music and attracted a large new audience, not least as ‘The Voices of Classic FM’ and through BBC television’s Sacred Music series.

The voices and period-instrument players of The Sixteen are at home in over five centuries of music, a breadth reflected in their annual Choral Pilgrimage to Britain’s great cathedrals and sacred spaces, regular appearances at the world’s leading concert halls, and award-winning recordings for The Sixteen’s CORO and other labels.

Recent highlights include the world premiere of James MacMillan’s Stabat mater (at the Barbican in 2016 and live streamed from the Sistine Chapel in 2018), and his Fifth Symphony ‘Le grand inconnu’ (2019 Edinburgh International Festival and the Lincoln Centre, New York), both commissioned for Harry Christophers and The Sixteen by the Genesis Foundation, an ambitious ongoing series of Handel oratorios, a debut tour of China, and a new, specially-commissioned series of programmes presented by Sir Simon Russell Beale entitled A Choral Odyssey.

Harry Christophers

Conductor

Harry Christophers stands among today’s great champions of choral music. In partnership with The Sixteen, he has set benchmark standards for the performance of everything from late medieval polyphony to important new works by contemporary composers.

Under his leadership The Sixteen has established its hugely successful annual Choral Pilgrimage, created the Sacred Music series for BBC television, and developed an acclaimed period-instrument orchestra. Highlights of their recent work include an Artist Residency at Wigmore Hall, a large-scale tour of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, the world premiere of James MacMillan’s Fifth Symphony at the 2019 Edinburgh International Festival and a live-streamed performance of MacMillan’s Stabat mater from the Sistine Chapel. Their future projects, meanwhile, comprise a new series devoted to Purcell and an ongoing survey of Handel’s dramatic oratorios.

Harry Christophers has served as Artistic Director of the Handel and Haydn Society since 2008, is Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Granada Orchestra and has worked as guest conductor with, among others, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsches Kammerphilharmonie. Christophers’ extensive commitment to opera has embraced productions for English National Opera and Lisbon Opera and work with the Granada, Buxton and Grange festivals.

He recently collaborated with BBC Radio 3 presenter Sara Mohr-Pietsch to produce a book entitled A New Heaven: Choral Conversations in celebration of the group’s 40th anniversary.

Harry Christophers was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s 2012 Birthday Honours list. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, as well as the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and has Honorary Doctorates in Music from the Universities of Leicester, Northumbria, Canterbury Christ Church and Kent.



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