Bearsted to Lenham (to Edinburgh)

Not sure what the weather is like in Kent today, but I suspect the Choral Pilgrimage Charity Walk is having a damp morning as it wends from Bearsted to Lenham. Donations to the two charitie we are supporting continue to come in: World Vision and the Save Canterbury Cathedral appeal. If you would like to sponsor the walk go to our special Just Giving pages: World Vision and Canterbury Cathedral.
I thought the sunny, Latin American picture the Edinburgh International Festival is using to market our concerts there towards the end of next month might brighten the walkers' morning. We have concerts on the 20th (sold out) and 24th August. Tickets are still available for Purcell's Indian Queen.

Weight of Victoria

Countertenor Christopher Royall leads the Chroal Pilgrimage Charity Walk, as it wends its way towards Canterbury. Big day today: 20 miles from Otford to Rochester. The Sixteen is raising money for two charities (not itself!): World Vision and the Save Canterbury Cathedral appeal. If you would like to sponsor the walk go to our special Just Giving pages: World Vision and Canterbury Cathedral. Lots more photos here.

Things concert audiences don't really think about: no. 1. How do we get the music for our concerts to the right place at the right time? I was thinking about the logistics as I dragged 30kg of Victoria from Cambridge to Fleet Street this morning. Our library is now huge and constantly expanding; not yet of British Library or UL size, but still requiring a catalogue and a system. We never let music go in the hold on flights on the way to concerts or during tours (you can perform without the right dress, but not without music) so the singers take care of their own sets, but it all has to be collected in the end and brought home for sorting, repairing and re-shelving. Some more thoughts on this from our Librarian in a few weeks................

Walk passes Chevening

The walkers have just passed the village of Chevening: you can see the church amongst the trees, and just pick out Chevening House which is the traditional grace-and-favour residence of the Foreign Secretary. This, however, being a Coalition, it's now a house-share - William Hague and the Deputy Prime Minister..... Onwards.

New Mozart Mass in C recording on CORO

Whilst the Choral Pilgrimage Charity Walk continues apace (12.5 miles today, from Oxted to Otford) we are pleased to announce a new strand of recordings on our label CORO: Harry's first recording with his 'other' group, the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston. Classic FM has written about this new venture.

Choral Pilgrimage Charity Walk - Day Two

The Sixteen's Choral Pilgrimage Charity Walk enters its second day today. Harry and the other walkers left Box Hill this morning, heading along the North Downs Way towards Mertsham. They started from Guildford Cathedral yesterday and will reach Canterbury Cathedral in a week's time. The Sixteen is raising money for two charities (not itself!): World Vision and the Save Canterbury Cathedral appeal. If you would like to sponsor the walk go to our special Just Giving pages: World Vision and Canterbury Cathedral.

The Arts should give up whingeing and start singing for its supper

Interesting (provocative?) article in yesterday's Evening Standard by one of our Development Board members, Chris Blackhurst. All performing arts organisations in the UK are urgently reviewing their funding models. We at The Sixteen are lucky already to attract a considerable amount of private support from individuals, but the challenge is always on to encourage more.

York

York is one of our favourite stops on our Choral Pilgrimage, and we have just had an amazing two day residency there as part of the York Early Music Festival: a concert for primary school children, a BBC Radio 3 Discovering Music recording, a packed-out evening concert in the Minster, and an Insight Day, all based on the music of Sheppard, Byrd and Tallis we are featuring on this year's UK tour. The Insight day set the music in context through lectures and discussions led by Sally Dunkley and John Milsom. John explored the detective work undertaken by musicologists to try and unravel when and for where particular pieces were composed, when the evidence is thin and requires considerable lateral thinking to come to any meaningful conclusions: Thomas Morley was sung in the gardens of the National Early Music centre as part of his explication!

Off to Munich tomorrow for a concert of Victoria in Ingolstadt on Wednesday evening.

Sunday Times free iTunes downloads this and next weekend

A track from our Messiah recording features in a special Sunday Times iTunes free promotion this weekend, when 15 of the top UK orchestras display their recorded wares in an attempt to encourage people to explore music they might not be familiar with. The following week's promotion will include a track from our Samson recording. The Sixteen are joined by the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia, and The London Philharmonic Orchestra amongst others.

BBC Proms Archive

Check out the newly launched Proms Archive, which you can search by composer, work or artist. My first discovery is that an aria from the work we are doing in Edinburgh next month was first performed in the Proms in 1897:

Wednesday 29 September 1897, 8:00PM

Henry Purcell Indian Queen, Z 630

- Aria 'I attempt from Love's sickness to fly in vain' Act 3

Hirwen Jones tenor


New Queen's Hall Orchestra (1895-1914, Queen's Hall Orchestra)
Henry Wood conductor

Monteverdi

Just back from the last recording session for our Monteverdi CD at St John's Smith Square in London - sat in on the ravishing soprano duet Salve Regina, with Elin Manahan Thomas and Grace Davidson and a battery of continuo instruments. The complete Telegraph review of our recent Monteverdi concert performances has just appeared online.

Great Buxtehude CD review in July Classic FM Magazine

Things digital...

We are in the studio (well, St John's Smith Square, pictured) for the next few days recording the first of a 3-CD Monteverdi project. Musing yesterday on the vagaries of TV scheduling. Because of the outcome of earlier World Cup rounds yesterday afternoon's Germany v. Argentina match was on BBC 1, which meant the Women's Wimbledon final and subsequent matches were shifted to BBC 2, which meant the 4.05pm repeat of one of our Sacred Music programmes bit the dust.

Magic numbers and some reminders

There is an interesting piece in Tom Service's Guardian blog today on composers and their clandestine codes. Read what he has to say about composers from Bach to John Zorn.

Tonight the Choral Pilgrimage reaches Milton Keynes. The concert is technically sold out but there might be a few returns on the door.

If you are nowhere near Milton Keynes you can hear our Monteverdi concerts from Spitalfields on BBC Radio 3 tonight at 7pm. Petroc Trelawny presents.

Baroque gets all jazzed up

Ivan Hewett in the Telegraph on our Monteverdi concert with Julian Joseph: 'Time was when the performance of Baroque music was all about "getting it right", but fortunately those days have passed. The "early music" world has woken up to the fact that improvisation and risk-taking are what really bring this music to life. That's also true of many other traditions, and it was only a matter of time before someone tried to mingle the Baroque form of improvisation with another...... In these cross-cultural enterprises one side always calls the shots, and here it was definitely Monteverdi's ravishing sound-world, with its strummed lutes and dancing violins and high sopranos trilling and sighing in ectasy or agony...... It was when the jazz players felt able to ignore their 'charts' and rely on gut instinct that things caught fire. Joseph's harmonic side-shifts and cadences took on his usual energising swing, but also a Monteverdian "sigh" that seemed completely natural. The choir, too, loosened up; in one number there was a flamenco-ish tang at the end of a phrase, which Joseph was able to seize and run with. The final Salve Regina worked best, especially at its final flourish, where Joseph and [bassist] Hodgson spun a superb riff over the concluding cadence. For a work in progress, this was impressive. Let's hope it's only the beginning.'