![\"\"](\"https:\/\/soundslikesydney.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/the16-325x107.jpg\" "\\"the16\\"")
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Sixteen is more than a number that sits between 15 and 17.\u00a0Small yet perfect in balance it has numerous manifestations. It is a composite number and is the square of 4 and the fourth power of 2; it’s a coming of age that brings privileges of adulthood.<\/p>\n
There are sixteen semiquavers in a semi-breve and sixteen ounces in a pound; it is a centred pentagonal number – one that makes the shape of a pentagon with one point in the centre and the remaining points arranged around it in concentric layers of 5.<\/p>\n
Whichever way it is considered, 16 is powerful as a single entity, as a product of its factors, and in those factors considered individually.<\/p>\n
These abstractions were unlikely to have been considered by Harry Christophers when he named his choir over three decades ago. In choral music, sixteen is the number of singers who comprise a stand alone ensemble but who can dissolve into component parts, where each part is flawless and blended in its delivery of music for both smaller and larger forces. There aren’t many choral ensembles around with fewer than 16 performers.<\/p>\n
Next month, Christophers brings his world renowned choir, The Sixteen with its orchestra, to Sydney\u00a0where they will perform at\u00a0the Sydney Opera House. \u00a0In this single Sydney performance they will present an all-Handel programme, including the cantatas Dixit Dominus<\/em> and Nisi Dominus, <\/em>the Coronation Anthem No 2\u00a0 Let thy hand be strengthened,\u00a0HWV 259\u00a0<\/em>and the solo cantata Silete Venti.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>It is the programme they performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 2011. Edinburgh Festival reviewer Kenneth Walton observed:<\/p>\n ‘<\/em>Dixit Dominus was sensational, driven by a cool, crisp exuberance, coupled with an overwhelming theatrical grandeur. It was solid in intent, but never lazily predictable. Even its blatant overdose of hallmark Handelian suspensions and sequences – flogged almost to death in the Juravit Domiinus chorus – bore intoxicating power in this powerfully measured performance’.<\/em><\/p>\n