The Choral Pilgrimage 2025: Belfast

The Sixteen is celebrating the 25^th anniversary of its annual Choral Pilgrimage tour. This year’s ‘Angel of Peace’ programme features nine pieces from across the centuries, from medieval abbess Hildegard of Bingen to the magical realm of a brand-new work by the contemporary composer Anna Clyne.

Programme
Hildegard of Bingen: Ave, generosa (verses 1 - 4)
Arvo Pärt: Tribute to Caesar
Will Todd: I shall be an angel of peace*
John Taverner: Gaude plurimum

Interval

Hildegard of Bingen: Ave, generosa (verses 5 – 7)
Arvo Pärt: Da pacem Domine
Anna Clyne: Orbits (New commission)*
Arvo Pärt: Magnificat
John Taverner: O splendor gloriae

*with solo violin

The Sixteen
Harry Christophers conductor
Sarah Sexton violin

The Sixteen’s Choral Pilgrimage 2025 will tour across the UK, visiting over twenty locations, beginning at Croydon Minster (17 March) and finishing at Chichester Cathedral (4 October).

Looking ahead to the 2025 Choral Pilgrimage, founder and conductor of The Sixteen Harry Christophers, says:

“With Angel of Peace, we invite audiences on a journey through words and music that span centuries. From Hildegard’s visionary compositions and Taverner’s glorious Marian antiphons to Will Todd’s meditation on Cardinal Newman and Anna Clyne’s new commission Orbits inspired by Rilke, each work offers a unique path to peace. Arvo Pärt, marking his 90th birthday, brings us full circle with his serene clarity. These timeless voices resonate with our deepest need for stillness and in each of the remarkable venues we visit, we hope to share a moment of peace and connection through the timeless language of music.”

About The Sixteen
Whether performing a simple medieval hymn or expressing the complex musical and emotional language of a contemporary choral composition, The Sixteen does so with qualities common to all great ensembles. Tonal warmth, rhythmic precision and immaculate intonation are clearly essential to the mix. But it is the courage and intensity with which The Sixteen makes music that speak above all to so many people. The Sixteen gave its first concert in 1979 under the direction of Founder and Conductor Harry Christophers CBE. Their pioneering work since has made a profound impact on the performance of choral music and attracted a large new audience, not least as ‘The Voices of Classic FM’ and through BBC television’s Sacred Music series.

The voices and period-instrument players of The Sixteen are at home in over five centuries of music, a breadth reflected in their annual Choral Pilgrimage to Britain’s great cathedrals and sacred spaces, regular appearances at the world’s leading concert halls, and award-winning recordings for The Sixteen’s CORO and other labels. Recent highlights include the world premiere of James MacMillan’s Stabat mater, commissioned for The Sixteen by the Genesis Foundation, an ambitious ongoing series of Handel oratorios, and a debut tour of China.