Musical performance: 'Miserere', The Sixteen conducted by Eamonn Dougan
Bill Viola / Michelangelo: Life, Death, Rebirth
Wednesday 27 February 2019 7.30 - 8.30pm
The Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts
£15, £9
Bill Viola / Michelangelo
Supported by the Genesis Foundation, with grateful thanks to John Studzinski CBE.
The Sixteen present a programme of music from the Sistine Chapel by Allegri and Josquin. Accompanied by musical responses from contemporary composers James MacMillan and Angus McPhee, inspired by the Bill Viola / Michelangelo exhibition.
Mirroring the dialogue between artists Bill Viola and Michelangelo, Harry Christophers has curated a programme of music from the Sistine Chapel coupled with two contemporary compositions, including a world premiere.
Harry Christophers and The Sixteen performed James MacMillan’s Stabat Mater in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel in April. Such a juxtaposition of the old and the new is central to Christophers and The Sixteen who now stand among the world’s greatest performers with their peerless interpretations of Renaissance, Baroque and modern choral music.
Miserere is a programme of music which includes a fresh look at Renaissance composers Allegri and Josquin’s compositions of Miserere, weaving in contemporary responses by James MacMillan as well as a world premiere from Angus McPhee, commissioned by the Genesis Foundation.
This concert is generously made possible by the Genesis Foundation who have supported Harry Christophers and The Sixteen for many years, including commissioning many choral works for them and funding Genesis Sixteen, their choral training programme for singers aged 18-23.
The Sixteen’s choir and period-instrument orchestra stand today among the world’s greatest ensembles, as peerless interpreters of Renaissance, Baroque and modern choral music, acclaimed worldwide for performances delivered with precision, power and passion.
The Sixteen arose from its Founder and Conductor Harry Christophers' formative experience as cathedral chorister and choral scholar. His enterprise, launched in 1979, built on the best of the British choral tradition while setting new standards of virtuosity and musicianship. Although refined over four decades, The Sixteen’s voices have remained consistent, always responsive to the emotional content of words and music, ever alert to subtle nuances of colour and shading.