Latest Release
- MAR 1, 2024
- 12 Songs
- Haydn Symphony No. 99 & Harmoniemesse · 2019
- Handel: Messiah, HWV 56 · 2008
- Masters of Imitation · 2024
- Sirens' Song · 2023
- Palestrina, Vol. 4 · 2013
- Vivaldi: Gloria in D Major, RV 589 - J.S. Bach: Mass in G Major, BWV 236 · 1992
- Palestrina, Vol. 9 · 2023
- A Watchful Gaze · 2023
- Handel: Messiah, HWV 56 · 2008
- Handel: Messiah, HWV 56 · 2004
Essential Albums
- With a masterpiece as beloved—and familiar—as Messiah, Handel’s great choral retelling of the life of Christ, it’s easy to imagine that there’s nothing new to be said. Harry Christophers and his virtuoso chamber choir The Sixteen prove otherwise: by 2008, when they made this recording they had over two decades’ experience with historically-informed performances of Handel. With a line-up of soloists that includes the great tenor Mark Padmore, this is a performance that combines epic sweep with a truly theatrical flair. And the great choruses—“For unto us a child is born,” “Lift up your heads,” and of course the “Hallelujah!” chorus—have a thrilling immediacy when sung with the precision and clarity of The Sixteen’s handpicked singers.
- 2024
- 2023
- 2023
- 2023
- 2022
- 2022
Singles & EPs
Live Albums
- 2022
- 2019
- 2015
- 2015
- 2014
About Harry Christophers
Few have done more to raise the standards and scope of chamber choir singing than Harry Christophers, whose ideal choral sound combines purity and warmth, light and shade, power and precision. Born in 1953, he was initiated into the English choral tradition as a boy treble at Canterbury Cathedral and deepened his experience with the choir of Magdalen College Oxford. Christophers began his career as a tenor at Westminster Abbey and with the BBC Singers. Shortly before graduating from Oxford in 1977, he was invited to organize a concert with former Magdalen choristers, who each received £5 and a pint of beer for their labor. They formed the nucleus of The Sixteen, who made their debut in May 1979, and won a devoted following with historically informed recordings of music including the 15th-century Eton Choirbook, Handel oratorios, and works by Monteverdi, Purcell, and J.S. Bach. Under Christophers’ enterprising direction, The Sixteen have launched their own record label and commissioned new works from James MacMillan, Roxanna Panufnik, Will Todd, and many others. He brought his potent brand of choral singing to the United States, following his appointment in 2009 as artistic director of Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society.
- HOMETOWN
- Goudhurst, Kent, England
- BORN
- December 26, 1953
- GENRE
- Classical