* En anglais uniquement
Conductor
Harry Christophers is known internationally as the founder and director of
the Sixteen. Earning accolades and awards for recordings with
the Sixteen and the
Handel and Haydn Society,
Christophers has also taken up the baton at opera houses and festivals in Europe.
Christophers and
the Sixteen established the Coro label in 2001, issuing more than 100 recordings since.
Christophers was born on December 26, 1953, in Goudhurst, Kent, England. He was educated at the Canterbury Cathedral Choir School and Magdalen College, Oxford. He founded
the Sixteen, and its accompanying instrumental ensemble, in 1977.
Christophers' emphasis with
the Sixteen is in the performance of early English polyphony, but also in a varied repertoire from the Renaissance to contemporary composers. He has led
the Sixteen on tours throughout Europe, America, Australia, and Asia. To perform music for choir and orchestra,
Christophers founded the Symphony of Harmony & Invention. In 2000, in celebration of the new millennium,
Christophers and
the Sixteen embarked on what has become an annual tradition with a "Choral Pilgrimage."
Christophers leads his group in performance at cathedrals throughout England, celebrating the 20th anniversary in 2020 with
The Call to Rome. Along with his duties with
the Sixteen,
Christophers has performed as a guest conductor with orchestras such as the
English Chamber Orchestra,
BBC Philharmonic,
Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, and the
St. Louis Symphony. As an operatic conductor, his repertoire includes
Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse, Gluck's Orfeo,
Handel's Ariodante, and
Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. In his 2000 debut with the
English National Opera, he conducted
Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea. He makes regular appearances with the
English National Opera and the Lisbon Opera.
In 2009,
Christophers expanded his workload when he became the artistic director of the
Handel and Haydn Society, the oldest continuously performing musical ensemble in the U.S. In that capacity, he oversaw the transformation of a venerable, but conservative, American community organization into a state-of-the-art historical performance group, releasing new recordings of such standard
Handel and
Haydn repertory as
Haydn's The Creation (2013).
Christophers' works with
the Sixteen have continued at a breakneck pace, with several dozen recordings appearing between 2010 and 2020. In addition to conducting,
Christophers generally contributes a short note explaining his attraction to the music and his reasons for wanting to record it. He has generally stuck to his core Baroque and Renaissance repertory but has ventured forward to
Mozart and as far as contemporary music. English audiences, especially, have responded to
Christophers' direct, personable approach, and his albums have earned heavy airplay on the radio as well as strong sales.
The Sixteen's recordings, as well as those of
Handel and Haydn Society, have appeared on Coro since the label was established by
Christophers and
the Sixteen. To celebrate the group's 40th anniversary in 2019,
Christophers and
the Sixteen released
40, a compilation of recordings from throughout their history. In addition to
The Call to Rome,
Christophers was also heard leading
The Sixteen and the
Britten Sinfonia on a recording of
music by James MacMillan.
His recordings have been awarded Grand Prix du Disque honors, three Deutsche Schallplatten prizes, four Diapason d'Or awards, and the 1992 Gramophone Early Music Award (for the first of the five-volume series Music From the Eton Choirbook). In 2012,
Christophers was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire.