Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 7, 1993 TAG: 9312070070
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The English choral group The Sixteen, with founding director Harry Christophers, will perform a Christmas-flavored program beginning at 8 p.m. The nearly all-English concert will feature 16th- and 20th-century composers.
Christophers, in a Sunday telephone interview from a Vermont motel room, said that in the beginning, the choir really did have 16 singers. And for the current American tour it also happens that they number 16 - counting Christophers and a lutenist.
But nowadays a concert by The Sixteen could mean you'll hear anything from eight to 32 singers or more - depending on the repertoire and where the group is performing.
The English choral music scene has been undergoing a mini-renaissance over the past two decades, with a flowering of world-class choral ensembles such as the Cambridge Singers, the Corydon Singers, the Tallis Scholars, the Finzi Singers, the Holst Choir and Orchestra, the Britten Singers, the Clerkes of Oxenford and others.
The director, who turns 40 the day after Christmas, said The Sixteen had its origins in this English choral revival - but that there was an element of chance both in his own musical career and in the group's genesis.
"I started in music almost by accident. My dad was a publican in a little village called Goudhurst in Kent, in the Weald of England, a place that's called `the garden of England.' It's great beer country.
"We moved to Canterbury and just by chance it seemed that I had a reasonable voice, so they put me into the Choir School at Canterbury Cathedral. I went to a public school called King's School, Canterbury, and then read classics at Magdalen College, Oxford.
"After two years I changed to music and studied under Bernard Rose and David Wulstan."
Wulstan, as founding director of the Clerkes of Oxenford, is one of the fathers of the current English choral revival. Christophers joined the Clerkes (pronounced "clarks") and confirmed his love for English 16th-century choral music.
The Sixteen had its origins in a farewell concert Christopher put together at the request of a friend in 1977, just after he'd left Oxford.
"It wasn't until the early 1980s that I thought it could be a regular thing," said Christophers. By that time he was a professional singer at Westminster Abbey and a member of the BBC Singers, where he worked with world-class conductors such as Pierre Boulez and Seiji Ozawa.
"During those three years with the BBC Singers I was building up The Sixteen. I knew I would be leaving [the BBC Singers] or would be asked to leave," Christophers recalled with a chuckle.
At first the group concentrated on Christopher's great love, 16th-century choral music. Nowadays he has added 20th-century music to his repertoire.
"I basically do the repertoire that I enjoy: Bach, Handel, Purcell, Poulenc, Stravinsky, Britten," said Christophers.
Despite the fact that the group has released many major-label CDs and has recording projects now underway with world-class orchestras, The Sixteen is still not a full-time job for its members.
"All the singers have other careers on the side," said Christophers. "They've got jobs at cathedrals like St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey or Westminster Cathedral. Eight or nine of the men have regular jobs with the BBC Singers or cathedrals and abbeys. We're not as a group capable of paying a wage to live on throughout the year."
The Sixteen possesses perhaps the most immediately identifiable sound of all of the English choral revival groups. The group that's best known in America, the Cambridge Singers, sings with a cool straight-tone sound in which the women singers sound as much as possible like boy choristers.
But The Sixteen has a warmer and richer tone, which is due, Christophers says, to the fact that he molds his ensemble sound to fit the personalities of his singers.
"The great thing about the group is that none of the people are boring. You hear these individual personalities, they've all got vibrant personalities that you should bring out."
There is a clarity to a typical Sixteen performance, which is almost as characteristic as the group's warm blend. "We tend to do things with the smallest number of people viable," said the director. A relatively small number of strong singers on each part creates a lucidity and translucence that is especially impressive in the soaring choral writing of the 16th century.
The Roanoke appearance of The Sixteen is due to the enthusiasm of Jeffrey Sandborg, director of the Roanoke Valley Choral Society, which is sponsoring the concert. Sandborg says "the tonal color and phrasing" of the group has made them one of his favorite choral ensembles.
Sandborg says he is especially eager to hear the group in the chorus-friendly acoustic space of St. Andrew's, which he says is perfect for the kind of repertoire The Sixteen performs.
"It's all hard surfaces, there's no fabric within a mile of the place," said Sandborg. "The music was written for just this kind of space, it really comes alive in a space like St. Andrew's."
The Sixteen's current American tour began in Seattle on Nov. 27, moved on to capacity crowds in Los Angeles, then a guest spot on the public radio program "St. Paul Sunday Morning." It will end in New York City.
by CNB