They’ve been touring Britain’s cathedrals for a quarter of a century to great acclaim. The choir’s founder Harry Christophers explains how they have built a devoted audience for choral music.

The Sixteen’s annual Choral Pil­grim­age is a fixture of UK classical music – as much part of the furniture as Bach Passions at Easter and Messiahs at Christmas. But what seems now like a central and essential part of the choral ecosystem was originally anything but.

It was back in 1998, the group’s founder-conductor Harry Christophers explains, and they’d wanted to do something to cele­brate the millennium and had discussed the idea of a big commission, but that hadn’t worked out. “Tony Smith, head of our development board, suddenly said, ‘Look at all this wonderful music; why don’t you tour it around all the gorgeous cathedrals in this country?’ There was silence – I mean, total silence. Eventually somebody said, ‘You must be mad – we’ll be bankrupt within a year. Nobody does concerts outside London.’”

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