Our President
Harry Christophers CBE
Founder and conductor of the world-renowned choir The Sixteen, Harry was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral and an academical clerk at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was later a lay vicar at Westminster Abbey, and sang with the Clerkes of Oxenford and the BBC Singers.
Any account of choral music in the early twenty-first century would be incomplete without a chapter dedicated to the work of Harry Christophers and The Sixteen. The conductor, in partnership with the ensemble he founded forty years ago, has set benchmark standards for the performance of everything from late medieval polyphony to new works from today’s finest choral composers. The Sixteen has also developed an acclaimed period-instrument orchestra under Christophers’ artistic leadership, now central to their series of Purcell odes and royal welcome songs and ongoing survey of Handel’s dramatic oratorios.
The Sixteen’s recent work includes an Artist Residency at Wigmore Hall, a large-scale tour of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, and the world premiere of James MacMillan’s Fifth Symphony. Recent highlights have included a performance of MacMillan’s Stabat mater for Pope Francis in the Sistine Chapel at Easter 2018, extensive tours of the USA and The Netherlands, as well as a continuation of the Choral Pilgrimage tour.
Alongside his commitments with The Sixteen, Harry Christophers served as Artistic Director of the Handel and Haydn Society for 13 years, and has recently been appointed their Conductor Laureate. He attracted critical acclaim to America’s oldest continuously active performing arts organisation, enhancing the international reputation of its period-instrument orchestra and chorus with a succession of recordings for The Sixteen’s own CORO label while broadening its local reach through education and community projects in Boston and beyond.
Guest conducting engagements add an extra dimension to Harry Christophers’ work. He has appeared with, among others, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsches Kammerphilharmonie and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and has been Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Granada Orchestra since 2008. His conducting credits also include extensive work in opera, including productions for English National Opera, Lisbon Opera and Buxton and Grange festivals.
Harry Christophers’ recordings for CORO, The Sixteen’s own label, and other labels have attracted numerous prestigious prizes. He won the Ensemble/Orchestral Album of the Year at the 2005 Classical Brit Awards for Renaissance, issued to mark The Sixteen’s 25th anniversary, and was nominated for a 2007 Grammy Award for IKON. In 2009 his second recording of Handel’s Messiah, made for CORO, was honoured with the MIDEM Classical Award, while he received the coveted Gramophone Artist of the Year Award together with the Best Baroque Vocal Award for Handel’s Coronation Anthems. Away from the recording studio, he has recently collaborated with BBC Radio 3 presenter Sara Mohr-Pietsch to produce a book entitled A New Heaven: Choral Conversationsin celebration of the group’s 40th anniversary.
Harry was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s 2012 Birthday Honours for his services to music. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, as well as the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and has Honorary Doctorates in Music from the Universities of Leicester, Northumbria, Canterbury Christ Church and Kent.
I owe my entire career to my experience as a chorister. It was where I learnt to perform, where I learnt to use the full range of my voice; where I learnt to listen, where I learnt to write comedy – but most importantly it was where I learnt the wonderful truth that something exceptional, something as beautiful as anything anywhere, can be created just by you and your friends.
Ambassador
Alexander Armstrong
Alexander Armstrong is an English comedian, actor, television presenter and bass baritone. He is best-known as one half of the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller who starred in four series of Armstrong and Miller, and The Armstrong and Miller Show. He regularly hosts the BBC series Have I Got News For You, and has co-presented the hugely popular TV quiz show Pointless since 2009.
Since September 2014, Alexander has presented the Saturday afternoon programme on the classical radio station Classic FM, and in 2020 he took over from John Suchet to host Classic FM’s flagship weekday mid-morning programme.
Alexander has a strong background in cathedral music. He counts his time as a chorister at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh as one of the most important and formative experiences of his life and went on to sing as a choral scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge.
After over a decade in television and comedy, Alexander returned to his musical roots releasing his debut solo vocal album, A Year of Songs, in November 2015. It reached number 6 on the UK Albums Chart and topped the UK Classical Charts. He has since released two more albums.
Ambassador
Anna Lapwood MBE
Anna Lapwood MBE is a British organist, choir director, and television and radio presenter, whose recordings have reached a wide audience of 1 million followers on social media since she was appointed as an associate artist at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2022. Awarded an Associateship of the Royal Academy of Music and the prestigious Gamechanger Award from the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2023. Anna regularly performs concertos with leading symphony orchestras and is heard playing recitals in concert halls and churches internationally.
Anna has also performed with Alison Balsom, Bonobo and Benedict Cumberbatch. As a broadcaster, she made her TV presenting debut on BBC Young Musician, has hosted a televised BBC Prom, and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 3 and 4.
Anna was the first female in Magdalen College Oxford’s 560-year history to be awarded the Organ Scholarship and became an Ambassador of Cathedral Music Trust in 2022. Anna runs the annual Cambridge Organ Experience for Girls and in 2022 she curated and edited ‘Gregoriana’ for Stainer & Bell, an anthology of 12 new organ pieces by female composers which was awarded Presto Music’s Publication of the Year.
Following four successful albums on Signum Classics, Anna signed exclusively to SONY in 2023 and the relationship launched with an EP – ‘Midnight Sessions at the Royal Albert Hall’. Her first album on SONY Classical, LUNA, was released on 29 September 2023.
How to support us
Our work is only made possible through the generosity of our supporters and volunteers. Each year we help tens of thousands of people to discover the joy of choral music in cathedrals, churches and local communities. Get involved and make a lasting impact on the lives of thousands of individuals involved in the UK’s vibrant choral music tradition.
