PERFORMERS FOR THE PADRE PIO EVENING

THE SIXTEEN

After twenty-nine years of world-wide performance and recording, The Sixteen is recognised as one of the world’s greatest ensembles.  Comprising both choir and period instrument orchestra, The Sixteen's total commitment to the music it performs is its greatest distinction.  Its special reputation for performing early English polyphony, masterpieces of the Renaissance, bringing fresh insights into Baroque and early Classical music and a diversity of twentieth century music is drawn from the passions of conductor and founder, Harry Christophers.

At home in the UK, The Sixteen are "The Voices of Classic FM" as well as Associate Artists of Southbank Centre, London.  The group promotes an annual series in the Queen Elizabeth Hall and in Oxford as well as The Choral Pilgrimage, a tour of our finest cathedrals bringing music back to the buildings for which it was written.

The Sixteen tours throughout Europe, Japan, Australia and the Americas and has given regular performances at major concert halls and festivals worldwide, including the Barbican Centre - London, Bridgewater Hall - Manchester, Concertgebouw - Amsterdam, Sydney Opera House, Tokyo Opera City and Vienna Musikverein and also at the BBC Proms, the festivals of Granada, Lucerne, Istanbul, Prague and Salzburg.  The vigour and passion of its performance win new fans wherever it performs.

In addition, The Sixteen’s period orchestra has taken part in highly acclaimed semi-staged performances of Purcell’s Fairy Queen in Tel Aviv and London, a fully-staged production of Purcell’s King Arthur in Lisbon’s Belem Centre, followed by new productions of Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria at Lisbon Opera House and The Coronation of Poppea at English National Opera.  Over one hundred recordings reflect The Sixteen’s quality in a range of work spanning the music of five hundred years, winning many awards including Grand Prix du Disque, numerous Schallplattenkritik, the coveted Gramophone Award for Early Music, the prestigious Classical Brit Award in 2005 for Renaissance and most recently being nominated for a Grammy Award and two Classical Brits for IKON.  These latter two discs were recorded as part of the group's contract with Universal Classics and Jazz.

Over the last six years, The Sixteen has been building its own record label, CORO, which now boasts nearly sixty releases.  Recent recordings include Brahms’s German Requiem, Elin Manahan Thomas's live recording of Handel Italian Cantatas and Music from the Sistine Chapel. New recordings due for release in 2008 include Treasures of Tudor England to accompany the Choral Pilgrimage, Fauré’s Requiem with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Handel’s Messiah.

Bringing together live concerts and recording plans has allowed The Sixteen to develop a glittering catalogue of releases, containing music from the Renaissance and Baroque through to great works of our time.

For more information on The Sixteen, Harry Christophers and CORO, please visit www.thesixteen.com

WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL CHOIR

Westminster Cathedral Choir is acclaimed as one of the world’s great choirs.  Since its foundation in 1903 it has occupied a unique and enviable position at the forefront of English church music, not least because of the ground-breaking work of its first Master of Music, Richard Terry, who revived the great works of the English and continental Renaissance composers.  The choir’s fame grew under Terry as it presented this forgotten music, revolutionising attitudes to the repertoire.  Innovation continued under George Malcolm who pioneered the development of the choir’s sound along continental lines, resulting in a choir that was truly revolutionary, in both what and how it sang.  The choir continues these traditions under its present Master of Music, Martin Baker, and it remains the only Catholic Cathedral choir in the world to sing daily Mass and Vespers.

The choir’s reputation is ever-expanding and it continues to reach new audiences through its series of acclaimed recordings on the Hyperion label, the two most recent being Christmas Vespers and Palestrina Lamentations. The choir has a history of commissioning and performing new music, a famous example being Britten’s Missa brevis for boys’ voices. Within the last decade the choir has commissioned new Masses from James MacMillan, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Judith Bingham, Sir John Tavener, and Matthew Martin, all of which were first performed in the context of the regular liturgies at Westminster Cathedral. The première of Stephen Hough’s Mass took place on the Feast of Corpus Christi 2007.

When its busy liturgical schedule permits, Westminster Cathedral Choir takes its music abroad and has sung at many major festivals, including Aldeburgh, Cheltenham and Salzburg.  In recent years the choir has toured Norway, Germany, Belgium and the US.  Most recently, they have completed a third successful tour of Milan.

HARRY CHRISTOPHERS

Harry Christophers is known internationally as founder and conductor of The Sixteen as well as a regular guest conductor for many of the major symphony orchestras and opera companies worldwide.  He has directed The Sixteen and its orchestra throughout Europe, America and the Far East gaining a distinguished reputation for his work in Renaissance, Baroque and twentieth century music.  He has made a significant contribution to the recording catalogue (already comprising some ninety titles) for which he has won numerous awards including a Grand Prix du Disque for Handel’s Messiah, numerous Schallplattenkritik, the coveted Gramophone Award for Early Music and most recently, the prestigious Classical Brit Award 2005 for his disc entitled Renaissance.  His CD IKON has recently been nominated for a 2007 Grammy.  In 2000 he instituted the ‘Choral Pilgrimage’, a national tour of English cathedrals from York to Canterbury in music from the pre-Reformation, as The Sixteen’s contribution to the millennium celebrations.  It raised awareness of this historic repertoire so successfully that the Choral Pilgrimage in the UK is now central to the annual artistic programme.  The seventh Choral Pilgrimage in 2007 concentrated on music from the Sistine Chapel whilst the 2008 Pilgrimage will feature ‘Treasures of Tudor England’.

As a guest conductor, Harry Christophers enjoys a very special partnership with the BBC Philharmonic including a disc of American-inspired works by Ives, Stravinsky, Poulenc and Tippett which won a Diapason d'Or. He is also a regular guest conductor with the Deutsches Kammerphilharmonie, City of London Sinfonia, Boston's Handel and Haydn Society, the Granada Symphony Orchestra and the Orquestra de la Comunidad de Madrid who have all benefited from his dynamic brand of programming.  He recently made his debut with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Hallé, the London Symphony Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony, to whom he will be returning in 2008.

Increasingly busy in opera, he began a Monteverdi cycle in 1998, in new productions for Lisbon Opera House, with Il ritorno d'Ulisse, following his success there with Gluck’s Orfeo. In 2000, he conducted Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte for the Lisbon Opera as well as Purcell’s King Arthur and Rameau’s Platée and made an acclaimed debut with English National Opera, conducting Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea.  He has since conducted productions of Gluck’s Orfeo and Handel’s Ariodante at ENO as well as the UK premiere of Messager’s opera Fortunio for Grange Park Opera.  After the outstanding success of Handel’s Semele and Hercules at Buxton Opera in past seasons, he returned in 2005 to conduct a new production of Mozart’s Ascanio in Alba.  In 2006, Mozart's anniversary year, he conducted a new production of Mitridate for the Granada Festival.  In 2008, he will be conducting a new production of Handel’s Samson for Buxton Opera.

MATTHEW MARTIN

Matthew Martin is the Assistant Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral. In this role he plays for the majority of the Cathedral services, gives organ concerts and regularly conducts the choir.

Matthew is in much demand as a recitalist and has played in some of the UK’s most prestigious venues and festivals. These have recently included the Cheltenham and Spitalfields Festivals, London Bach Festival and St John’s Smith Square. He also acts as organist to the annual Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy.

In addition to his work as an organist and conductor, Matthew is becoming increasingly known as a composer. Recent commissions have come from Cardinall’s Musick, the Edington Festival and the Choir of Westminster Abbey. Novello have published one of his most recent choral works.

Matthew was born in 1976 and read music at Magdalen College, Oxford where he was Organ Scholar. After graduating in 1998, he went on to the Royal Academy of Music as a post-graduate student winning all the prizes in organ playing. He subsequently continued his studies in Paris with Marie-Claire Alain. In 2000 Matthew became Organist and Choirmaster at the University Church and Assistant Organist at New College, Oxford. Before moving to Westminster, he was Assistant Organist at Canterbury Cathedral where he played for the enthronement of Dr Rowan Williams as Archbishop. Matthew was recently elected Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.